<•  w 


J., 


MAIN   STREET 


MAIN  STREET 


SINCLAIR  LEWIS 

author  of 


DODSWORTH, 

ELMER  GANTRY, 

BABBITT,  Etc. 


GROSSET  &.  DUNLAP 
Publishers 


by  arrangement  with 
HARCOURT  BRACE  &.  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  Ip20,  BY 
HABCOUBT,    BRACE  AND  COMPANY.  IRC, 


First  printing,  October,  1920 

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PRINTED  IN  THE  U.e-fl. 


FS  3523 


To 

James  Branch  Cabell  '• 

and 
Joseph  Hergesheimer 


5345 


This  is  America — a  town  of  a  jew  thousand,  in  a  region  of 
wheat  and  corn  and  dairies  and  little  groves. 

The  town  is,  in  our  tale,  called  "Gopher  Prairie,  Minn 
esota"  But  its  Main  Street  is  the  continuation  of  Main 
Streets  everywhere.  The  story  would  be  the  same  in  Ohio  or 
Montana,  in  Kansas  or  Kentucky  or  Illinois,  and  not  very 
differently  would  it  be  told  Up  York  State  or  in  the  Carolina 
hills. 

Main  Street  is  the  climax  of  civilization.  That  this  Ford 
car  might  stand  in  front  of  the  Bon  Ton  Store,  Hannibal 
invaded  Rome  and  Erasmus  wrote  in  Oxford  cloisters.  What 
Ole  Jenson  the  grocer  says  to  Ezra  Stowbody  the  banker  is  the 
new  law  for  London,  Prague,  and  the  unprofitable  isles  of  the 
sea;  whatsoever  Ezra  does  not  know  and  sanction,  that  thing 
is  heresy,  worthless  for  knowing  and  wicked  to  consider. 

Qur  railway  station  is  the  final  aspiration  of  architecture. 
Sam  Clark's  annual  hardware  turnover  is  the  envy  of  the  four 
counties  which  constitute  God's  Country.  In  the  sensitive  art 
of  the  Rosebud  Movie  Palace  there  is  a  Message,  and  humor 
'strictly  moral. 

Such  is  our  comfortable  tradition  and  sure  faith.  Would  he 
not  betray  himself  an  alien  cynic  who  should  otherwise  portray 
Main  Street,  or  distress  the  citizens  by  speculating  whether 
there  may  not  be  other  faiths? 


MAIN  STREET 

CHAPTER  I 


ON  a  hill  by  the  Mississippi  where  Chippewas  camped  two 
generations  ago,  a  girl  stood  in  relief  against  the  cornflower 
blue  of  Northern  sky.  She  saw  no  Indians  now ;  she  saw  flour- 
mills  and  the  blinking  windows  of  skyscrapers  in  Minneapolis 
and  St.  Paul.  Nor  was  she  thinking  of  squaws  and  portages, 
and  the  Yankee  fur-traders  whose  shadows  were  all  about  her. 
She  was  meditating  upon  walnut  fudge,  the  plays  of  Brieux, 
the  reasons  why  heels  run  over,  and  the  fact  that  the  chemistry 
instructor  had  stared  at  the  new  coiffure  which  concealed  her 
ears. 

A  breeze  which  had  crossed  a  thousand  miles  of  wheat-lands 
bellied  her  taffeta  skirt  in  a  line  so  graceful,  so  full  of  animation 
and  moving  beauty,  that  the  heart  of  a  chance  watcher  on  the 
lower  road  tightened  to  wistfulness  over  her  quality  of  sus 
pended  freedom.  She  lifted  her  arms,  she  leaned  back  against 
the  wind,  her  skirt  dipped  and  flared,  a  lock  blew  wild.  A  girl 
on  a  hilltop ;  credulous,  plastic,  young ;  drinking  the  air  as  she 
longed  to  drink  life.  The  eternal  aching  comedy  of  expectant 
youth. 

It  is  Carol  Milford,  fleeing  for  an  hour  from  Blodgett  College. 

The  days  of  pioneering,  of  lassies  in  sunbonnets,  and  bears 
killed  with  axes  in  piney  clearings,  are  deader  now  than  Ca*ne- 
lot;  and  a  rebellious  girl  is  the  spirit  of  that  bewildered  empire 
called  the  American  Middlewest. 


Blodgett  College  is  on  the  edge  of  Minneapolis.  It  is  a 
bulwark  of  sound  religion.  It  is  still  combating  the  recent 
heresies  of  Voltaire,  Darwin,  and  Robert  Ingersoll.  Pious 


a  MAIN   STREET 

families  in  Minnesota,  Iowa,  Wisconsin,  the  Dakotas  send  their 
children  thither,  and  Blodgett  protects  them  from  the  wicked 
ness  of  the  universities.  But  it  secretes  friendly  girls,  young 
men  who  sing,  and  one  lady  instructress  who  really  likes 
Milton  and  Carlyje.  So  the  four  years  which  Carol  spent  at 
H'odgett  were'  riot  altogether  wasted.  The  smallness  of  the 
School,  the  fewness  of  rivals,  permitted  her  to  experiment  with 
her  oeriiqus  versatility.  She  played  tennis,  gave  chafing-dish 
paitie>,  took  a  giaduate  seminar  in  the  drama,  went  "  twosing," 
and  joined  half  a  dozen  societies  for  the  practise  of  the  arts 
or  the  tense  stalking  of  a  thing  called  General  Culture. 

In  her  class  there  were  two  or  three  prettier  girls,  but  none 
more  eager.  She  was  noticeable  equally  in  the  classroom  grind 
and  at  dances,  though  out  of  the  three  hundred  students  of 
Blodgett,  scores  recited  more  accurately  and  dozens  Bostoned 
more  smoothly.  Every  cell  of  her  body  was  alive — thin  wrists, 
quince-blossom  skin,  ingenue  eyes,  black  hair. 

The  other  girls  in  her  dormitory  marveled  at  the  slightness 
of  her  body  when  they  saw  her  in  sheer  negligee,  or  darting  out 
wet  from  a  shower-bath.  She  seemed  then  but  half  as  large  as 
they  had  supposed;  a  fragile  child  who  must  be  cloaked  with 
understanding  kindness.  "  Psychic,"  the  girls  whispered,  and 
"  spiritual."  Yet  so  radioactive  were  her  nerves,  so  adventur 
ous  her  trust  in  rather  vaguely  conceived  sweetness  and  light, 
that  she  was  more  energetic  than  any  of  the  hulking  young 
women  who,  with  calves  bulging  in  heavy-ribbed  woolen  stock 
ings  beneath  decorous  blue  serge  bloomers,  thuddingly  galloped 
across  the  floor  of  the  "  gym  "  in  practise  for  the  Blodgett 
Ladies'  Basket-Bali  Team. 

Even  when  she  was  tired  her  dark  eyes  were  observant.  She 
did  not  yet  know  the  immense  ability  of  the  world  to  be 
casually  cruel  and  proudly  dull,  but  if  she  should  ever  learn 
those  dismaying  powers,  her  eyes  would  never  become  sullen 
or  heavy  or  rheumily  amorous. 

For  all  her  enthusiasms,  for  all  the  fondness  and  the 
"  crushes  "  which  she  inspired,  Carol's  acquaintances  were  shy 
of  her.  When  she  was  most  ardently  singing  hymns  or  plan 
ning  deviltry  she  yet  seemed  gently  aloof  and  critical.  She  was 
credulous,  perhaps;  a  born  hero- worshipper ;  yet  she  did 
question  and  examine  unceasingly.  Whatever  she  might  be 
come  she  would  never  be  static. 

Her  versatility  ensnaied  her.    By  turns  she  hoped  to  discover 


MAIN   STREET  3 

that  she  had  an  unusual  voice,  a  talent  for  the  piano,  the 
ability  to  act,  to  write,  to  manage  organizations.  Always  she 
was  disappointed,  but  always  she  effervesced  anew — over  the 
Student  Volunteers,  who  intended  to  become  missionaries,  over 
painting  scenery  for  the  dramatic  club,  over  soliciting  adver 
tisements  for  the  college  magazine. 

She  was  on  the  peak  that  Sunday  afternoon  when  she  played 
in  chapel.  Out  of  the  dusk  her  violin  took  up  the  organ 
theme,  and  the  candle-light  revealed  her  in  a  straight  golden 
frock,  her  arm  arched  to  the  bow,  her  lips  serious.  Every 
man  fell  in  love  then  with  religion  and  Carol. 

Throughout  Senior  year  she  anxiously  related  all  her  experi 
ments  and  partial  successes  to  a  career.  Daily,  on  the 
library  steps  or  in  the  hall  of  the  Main  Building,  the  co-eds 
talked  of  "  What  shall  we  do  when  we  finish  college?  "  Even, 
the  girls  who  knew  that  they  were  going  to  be  married  pre 
tended  to  be  considering  important  business  positions;  even 
they  who  knew  that  they  would  have  to  work  hinted  about 
labulous  suitors.  As  for  Carol,  she  was  an  orphan;  her  only 
near  relative  was  a  vanilla-flavored  sister  married  to  an 
optician  in  St.  Paul.  She  had  used  most  of  the  money  from 
her  father's  estate.  She  was  not  in  love — that  is,  not  oiten, 
nor  ever  long  at  a  time.  She  would  earn  her  living. 

But  how  she  was  to  earn  it,  how  she  was  to  conquer  the 
world — almost  entirely  for  the  world's  own  good — she  did  not 
see.  Most  of  the  girls  who  were  not  betrothed  meant  to  be 
teachers.  Of  these  there  were  two  sorts:  careless  young 
women  who  admitted  that  they  intended  to  leave  the  "  beastly 
classroom  and  grubby  children  "  the  minute  they  had  a  chance 
to  marry;  and  studious,  sometimes  bulbous-browed  and  pop- 
eyed  maidens  who  at  class  prayer-meetings  requested  God  to 
"guide  their  feet  along  the  paths  of  greatest  usefulness." 
Neither  sort  tempted  Carol.  The  former  seemed  insincere  6 
favorite  word  of  hers  at  this  era).  The  earnest  virgins  w 
she  fancied,  as  likely  to  do  harm  as  to  do  good  by  ti.,? 
faith  in  the  value  of  parsing  Caesar. 

At  various  times  during  Senior  year  Carol  finally  decidt.. 
upon  studying  law,  writing  motion-picture  scenarios,  profe£ 
slonal  nursing,  and  marrying  an  unidentified  hero. 

Then  she  found  a  hobby  in  sociology. 

The  sociology  instructor  was  new.  He  was  married,  and 
therefore  taboo,  but  he  had  come  from  Boston,  he  had  lived 


4  MAIN   STREET 

among  poets  and  socialists  and  Jews  and  millionaire  upliftera 
at  the  University  Settlement  in  New  York,  and  he  had  a 
beautiful  white  strong  neck.  He  led  a  giggling  class  through  the 
prisons,  the  charity  bureaus,  the  employment  agencies  of  Min 
neapolis  and  St.  Paul.  Trailing  at  the  end  of  the  line  Carol 
was  indignant  at  the  prodding  curiosity  of  the  others,  their 
manner  of  staring  at  the  poor  as  at  a  Zoo.  She  felt  herself  a 
great  liberator.  She  put  her  hand  to  her  mouth,  her  fore 
finger  and  thumb  quite  painfully  pinching  her  lower  lip,  and 
frowned,  and  enjoyed  being  aloof. 

A  classmate  named  Stewart  Snyder,  a  competent  bulky 
young  man  in  a  gray  flannel  shirt,  a  rusty  black  bow  tie,  and 
the  green-and-purple  class  cap,  grumbled  to  her  as  they  walked 
behind  the  others  in  the  muck  of  the  South  St.  Paul  stock 
yards,  "  These  college  chumps  make  me  tired.  They're  so 
top-lofty.  They  ought  to  of  worked  on  the  farm,  the  way  I 
have.  These  workmen  put  it  all  over  them." 

"  I  just  love  common  workmen,"  glowed  Carol. 

"  Only  you  don't  want  to  forget  that  common  workmen  don't 
think  they're  common!  " 

"  You're  right!  I  apologize!  "  Carol's  brows  lifted  in  the 
astonishment  of  emotion,  in  a  glory  of  abasement.  Her  eyes 
mothered  the  world.  Stewart  Snyder  peered  at  her.  He 
rammed  his  large  red  fists  into  his  pockets,  he  jerked  them 
out,  he  resolutely  got  rid  of  them  by  clenching  his  hands 
behind  him,  and  he  stammered: 

"  I  know.    You  get  people.    Most  of  these  darn  co-eds 

Say,  Carol,  you  could  do  a  lot  for  people." 

"  How?  " 

"  Oh — oh  well — you  know — sympathy  and  everything — if 
you  were — say  you  were  a  lawyer's  wife.  You'd  understand 
his  clients.  I'm  going  to  be  a  lawyer.  I  admit  I  fall  down 
^sympathy  sometimes.  I  get  so  dog-gone  impatient  with  people 
or  4  can't  stand  the  gaff.  You'd  be  good  for  a  fellow  that  was 

I  serious.  Make  him  more — more — you  know — sympa- 
"cjtic!" 

of  His  slightly  pouting  lips,  his  mastiff  eyes,  were  begging  her 
*lo  beg  him  to  go  on.  She  fled  from  the  steam-roller  ot  his 
sentiment.  She  cried,  "  Oh,  see  those  poor  sheep — millions 
and  millions  of  them."  She  darted  on. 

Stewart  was  not  interesting.  He  hadn't  a  shapely  white 
neck,  and  he  had  never  lived  among  celebrated  reformer' 


MAIN   STREET 


She  wanted,  just  now,  to  have  a  cell  in  a  settlement-house,  like 
a  nun  without  the  bother  of  a  black  robe,  and  be  kind,  and 
read  Bernard  Shaw,  and  enormously  improve  a  horde  of  grate 
ful  poor. 

The  supplementary  reading  in  sociology  led  her  to  a  book 
on  village-improvement — tree-planting,  town  pageants,  girls' 
clubs.  It  had  pictures  of  greens  and  garden-walls  in  France, 
New  England,  Pennsylvania.  She  had  picked  it  up  carelessly, 
with  a  slight  yawn  which  she  patted  down  with  her  finger-tips 
as  delicately  as  a  cat. 

She  dipped  into  the  book,  lounging  on  her  window-seat, 
.  with  her  slim,  lisle-stockinged  legs  crossed,  and  her  knees  up 
under  her  chin.  She  stroked  a  satin  pillow  while  she  read. 
About  her  was  the  clothy  exuberance  of  a  Blodgett  College 
room:  cretonne- covered  window-seat,  photographs  of  girls,  a 
carbon  print  of  the  Coliseum,  a  chafing-dish,  and  a  dozen 
pillows  embroidered  or  beaded  or  pyrographed.  Shockingly 
out  of  place  was  a  miniature  of  the  Dancing  Bacchante.  It 
was  the  only  trace  of  Carol  in  the  room.  She  had  inherited  the 
rest  from  generations  of  girl  students. 

It  was  as  a  part  of  all  this  commonplaceness  that  she  re 
garded  the  treatise  on  village-improvement.  But  she  suddenly 
stopped  fidgeting.  She  strode  into  the  book.  She  had  fled 
half-way  through  it  before  the  three  o'clock  bell  called  her 
to  the  class  in  English  history. 

She  sighed,  "  That's  what  I'll  do  after  college!  I'll  get  my 
hands  on  one  of  these  prairie  towns  and  make  it  beautiful. 
Be  an  inspiration.  I  suppose  I'd  better  become  a  teacher  then, 
but — I  won't  be  that  kind  of  a  teacher.  I  won't  drone.  Why 
should  they  have  all  the  garden  suburbs  on  Long  Island?  No 
body  has  done  anything  with  the  ugly  towns  here  in  the 
Northwest  except  hold  revivals  and  build  libraries  to  contain  the 
Elsie  books.  I'll  make  'em  put  in  a  village  green,  and  darling 
cottages,  and  a  quaint  Main  Street!  " 

Thus  she  triumphed  through  the  class,  which  was  a 
typical  Blodgett  contest  between  a  dreary  teacher  and  unwill 
ing  children  of  twenty,  won  by  the  teacher  because  his 
opponents  had  to  answer  his  questions,  while  their  treacherous 
queries  he  could  counter  by  demanding,  "  Have  you  looked 
that  up  in  the  library?  Well  then,  suppose  you  do!  " 

Vhe  history  instructor  was  a  retired  minister.  He  was 
sarcastic  today.  He  begged  of  sporting  young  Mr.  Charley 


6  MAIN   STREET 

Holmberg,  "  Now  Charles,  would  it  interrupt  your  undoubtedly 
fascinating  pursuit  of  that  malevolent  fly  if  I  were  to  ask  you 
to  tell  us  that  you  do  not  know  anything  about  King  John?  " 
He  spent  three  delightful  minutes  in  assuring  himself  of  the 
fact  that  no  one  exactly  remembered  the  date  of  Magna  Charta. 
Carol  did  not  hear  him.  She  was  completing  the  roof  of  a 
half-timbered  town  hall.  She  had  found  one  man  in  the 
prairie  village  who  did  not  appreciate  her  picture  of  winding 
streets  and  arcades,  but  she  had  assembled  the  town  council 
and  dramatically  defeated  him. 


m 

Though  she  was  Minnesota-born  Carol  was  not  an  intimate 
of  the  prairie  villages.  Her  father,  the  smiling  and  shabby, 
the  learned  and  teasingly  kind,  had  come  from  Massachusetts, 
and  through  all  her  childhood  he  had  been  a  judge  in  Mankato, 
which  is  not  a  prairie  town,  but  in  its  garden-sheltered  streets 
and  aisles  of  elms  is  white  and  green  New  England  reborn. 
Mankato  lies  between  cliffs  and  the  Minnesota  River,  hard  by 
Traverse  des  Sioux,  where  the  first  settlers  made  treaties  with 
the  Indians,  and  the  cattle-rustlers  once  came  galloping  before 
hell-for-leather  posses. 

As  she  climbed  along  the  banks  of  the  dark  river  Carol 
listened  to  its  fables  about  the  wide  land  of  yellow  waters  and 
bleached  buffalo  bones  to  the  West;  the  Southern  levees  and 
singing  darkies  and  palm  trees  toward  which  it  was  forever 
mysteriously  gliding;  and  she  heard  again  the  startled  bells 
and  thick  puffing  of  high-stacked  river  steamers  wrecked  on 
sand-reefs  sixty  years  ago.  Along  the  decks  she  saw  mission 
aries,  gamblers  in  tall  pot  hats,  and  Dakota  chiefs  with  scarlet 
blankets.  .  .  .  Far  off  whistles  at  night,  round  the  river  bend, 
plunking  paddles  reechoed  by  the  pines,  and  a  glow  on  black 
sliding  waters. 

Carol's  family  were  self-sufficient  in  their  inventive  life, 
with  Christmas  a  rite  full  of  surprises  and  tenderness,  and 
"  dressing-up  parties  "  spontaneous  and  joyously  absurd.  The 
beasts  in  the  Milford  hearth-mythology  were  not  the  obscene 
Night  Animals  who  jump  out  of  closets  and  eat  little  girls,  but 
beneficent  and  bright-eyed  creatures— the  tarn  htab,  whu  is 
woolly  and  blue  and  lives  in  the  bathroom,  and  runs  rapidlv  to 
warm  small  feet;  the  ferruginous  oil  stove,  who  purrs  and 


MAIN   STREET  7 

knows  stories;  and  the  skitamarigg,  who  will  play  with  chil 
dren  before  breakfast  if  they  spring  out  of  bed  and  close  the 
window  at  the  very  first  line  of  the  song  about  puellas  which 
father  sings  while  shaving. 

Judge  Milford's  pedagogical  scheme  was  to  let  the  children 
read  whatever  they  pleased,  and  in  his  brown  library  Carol 
absorbed  Balzac  and  Rabelais  and  Thoreau  and  Max  Muller. 
He  gravely  taught  them  the  letters  on  the  backs  of  the  encyclo 
pedias,  and  when  polite  visitors  asked  about  the  mental  prog 
ress  of  the  "  little  ones,"  they  were  horrified  to  hear  the 
children  earnestly  repeating  A-And,  And-Aus,  Aus-Bis,  Bis-Cal, 
Cal-Cha. 

Carol's  mother  died  when  she  was  nine.  Her  father  retired 
from  the  judiciary  when  she  was  eleven,  and  took  the  family 
to  Minneapolis.  There  he  died,  two  years  after.  Her  sister,  a 
busy  proper  advisory  soul,  older  than  herself,  had  become  a 
stranger  to  her  even  when  they  lived  in  the  same  house. 

From  those  early  brown  and  silver  days  and  from  her 
independence  of  relatives  Carol  retained  a  willingness  to  be 
different  from  brisk  efficient  book-ignoring  people  fan  instinct 
to  observe  and  wonder  at  their  bustle  even  when  she  was 
taking  part  in  it.  But,  she  felt  approvingly,  as  she  discovered 
her  career  of  town-planning,  she  was  now  roused  to  being  brisk 
and  efficient  herself. 


IV 

In  a  month  Carol's  ambition  had  clouded.  Her  hesitancy 
about  becoming  a  teacher  had  returned.  She  was  not,  she 
worried,  strong  enough  to  endure  the  routine,  and  she  could 
not  picture  herself  standing  before  grinning  children  and  pre 
tending  to  be  wise  and  decisive.  But  the  desire  for  the  creation 
of  a  beautiful  town  remained.  When  she  encountered  an  item 
about  small-town  women's  clubs  or  a  photograph  of  a  strag 
gling  Main  Street,  she  was  homesick  for  it,  she  felt  robbed  of 
her  work. 

It  was  the  advice  of  the  professor  of  English  which  led  her 
to  study  professional  library-work  in  a  Chicago  school.  Ker 
imagination  carved  and  colored  the  new  plan.  She  saw  herself 
persuading  children  to  read  charming  fairy  tales,  helping  young 
men  to  find  books  on  mechanics,  being  ever  so  courteous  to 
old  men  who  were  hunting  for  newspapers — the  light  of  the 


6  MAIN   STREET 

library,  an  authority  on  books,  invited  to  dinners  with  poets 
and  explorers,  reading  a  paper  to  an  association  of  distinguished 
scholars. 


The  last  faculty  reception  before  commencement.  In 
five  days  they  would  be  in  the  cyclone  of  final  examina 
tions. 

The  house  of  the  president  had  been  massed  with  palms 
suggestive  of  polite  undertaking  parlors,  and  in  the  library,  a 
ten-foot  room  with  a  globe  and  the  portraits  of  Whittier  and 
Martha  Washington,  the  student  orchestra  was  playing 
"  Carmen  "  and  "  Madame  Butterfly."  Carol  was  dizzy  with 
music  and  the  emotions  of  parting.  She  saw  the  palms  as  a 
jungle,  the  pink-shaded  electric  globes  as  an  opaline  haze,  and 
the  eye-glassed  faculty  as  Olympians.  She  was  melancholy  at 
sight  of  the  mousey  girls  with  whom  she  had  "  always  intended 
to  get  acquainted,"  and  the  half  dozen  young  men  who  were 
ready  to  fall  in  love  with  her. 

But  it  was  Stewart  Snyder  whom  she  encouraged.  He  was 
so  much  manlier  than  the  others ;  he  was  an  even  warm  brown, 
like  his  new  ready-made  suit  with  its  padded  shoulders.  She 
sat  with  him,  and  with  two  cups  of  coffee  and  a  chicken  patty, 
upon  a  pile  of  presidential  overshoes  in  the  coat-closet  under 
the  stairs,  and  as  the  thin  music  seeped  in,  Stewart 
whispered: 

"I  can't  stand  it,  this  breaking  up  after  four  years  I  The 
happiest  years  of  life." 

She  believed  it.  "  Oh,  I  know!  To  think  that  in  just  a  few 
days  we'll  be  parting,  and  we'll  never  see  some  of  the  bunch 
again!  " 

"  Carol,  you  got  to  listen  to  me!  You  always  duck  when  I 
try  to  talk  seriously  to  you,  but  you  got  to  listen  to  me. 
I'm  going  to  be  a  big  lawyer,  maybe  a  judge,  and  I  need  you, 
and  I'd  protect  you " 

His  arm  slid  behind  her  shoulders.    The  insinuating  music 
drained  her  independence.    She  said  mournfully,  "  Would  j  ou 
take  care  of  me?"    She  touched  his  hand.     It  was  warm,- 
solid. 

"  You  bet  I  would!  We'd  have,  Lord,  we'd  have  bully 
times  in  Yankton,  where  I'm  going  to  settle " 

"  But  I  want  to  do  something  with  life." 


MAIN   STREET  9 

w  What's  better  than  making  a  comfy  home  and  bringing  up 
some  cute  kids  and  knowing  nice  homey  people?  " 

It  was  the  immemorial  male  reply  to  the  restless  woman. 
Thus  to  the  young  Sappho  spake  the  melon- venders;  thus  the 
captains  to  Zenobia;  and  in  the  damp  cave  over  gnawed  bones 
the  hairy  suitor  thus  protested  to  the  woman  advocate  of 
matriarchy.  In  the  dialect  of  Blodgett  College  but  with  the 
voice  of  Sappho  was  Carol's  answer: 

"  Of  course.  I  know.  I  suppose  that's  so.  Honestly,  I  do 
love  children.  But  there's  lots  of  women  that  can  do  house- 
work,  but  I — well,  if  you  have  got  a  college  education,  you 
ought  to  use  it  for  the  world." 

"  I  know,  but  you  can  use  it  just  as  well  in  the  home.  And 
gee,  Carol,  just  think  of  a  bunch  of  us  going  out  on  an  auto 
picnic,  some  nice  spring  evening." 

"  Yes." 

"  And  sleigh-riding  in  winter,  and  going  fishing " 

Blarrrrrrr!  The  orchestra  had  crashed  into  the  "  Soldiers' 
Chorus  ";  and  she  was  protesting,  "  No!  No!  You're  a  dear, 
but  I  want  to  do  things.  I  don't  understand  myself  but  I  want — 
everything  in  the  world!  Maybe  I  can't  sing  or  write,  but  I 
know  I  can  be  an  influence  in  library  work.  Just  suppose  I 
encouraged  some  boy  and  he  became  a  great  artist!  I  will! 
I  will  do  it!  Stewart  dear,  I  can't  settle  down  to  nothing  but 
dish- washing!  " 

Two  minutes  later— two  hectic  minutes — they  were  disturbed 
by  an  embarrassed  couple  also  seeking  the  idyllic  seclusion  of 
the  overshoe-closet. 

After  graduation  she  never  saw  Stewart  Snyder  again.  She 
wrote  to  him  once  a  week — for  one  month. 


VI 

A  year  Carol  spent  in  Chicago.  Her  study  of  library-cata 
loguing,  recording,  books  of  reference,  was  easy  and  not  too 
somniferous.  She  reveled  in  the  Art  Institute,  in  symphonies 
and  violin  recitals  and  chamber  music,  in  the  theater  and 
classic  dancing.  She  almost  gave  up  library  work  to  become  one 
of  the  young  women  who  dance  in  cheese-cloth  in  the  moonlight. 
She  was  taken  to  a  certified  Studio  Party,  with  beer,  cigarettes, 
bobbed  hair,  and  a  Russian  Jewess  who  sang  the  Internation 
ale.  It  cannot  be  reported  that  Carol  had  anything  significant 


in  MAIN   STREET 

to  say  to  the  Bohemians.  She  was  awkward  with  them,  and 
felt  ignorant,  and  she  was  shocked  by  the  free  manners  which 
she  had  for  years  desired.  But  she  heard  and  remembered 
discussions  of  Freud,  Remain  Rolland,  syndicalism,  the  Con 
federation  Generate  du  Travail,  feminism  vs.  haremism, 
Chinese  lyrics,  nationalization  of  mines,  Christian  Science,  and 
fishing  in  Ontario. 

She  went  home,  and  that  was  the  beginning  and  end  of  her 
Bohemian  life. 

The  second  cousin  of  Carol's  sister's  husband  lived  in  Win- 
netka,  and  once  invited  her  out  to  Sunday  dinner.  She  walked 
back  through  Wilmette  and  Evanston,  discovered  new  forms  of 
suburban  architecture,  and  remembered  her  desire  to  recreate 
villages.  She  decided  that  she  would  give  up  library  work  and, 
by  a  miracle  whose  nature  was  not  very  clearly  revealed  to 
her,  turn  a  prairie  town  into  Georgian  houses  and  Japanese 
bungalows. 

The  next  day  in  library  class  she  had  to  read  a  theme  on  the 
use  of  the  Cumulative  Index,  and  she  was  taken  so  seriously 
in  the  discussion  that  she  put  off  her  career  of  town-planning — 
and  in  the  autumn  she  was  in  the  public  library  of  St.  Paul. 


vn 

Carol  was  not  unhappy  and  she  was  not  exhilarated,  in  the 
St.  Paul  Library.  She  slowly  confessed  that  she  was  not  visibly 
affecting  lives.  She  did,  at  first,  put  into  her  contact  with  the 
patrons  a  willingness  which  should  have  moved  worlds.  But 
so  few  of  these  stolid  worlds  wanted  to  be  moved.  When  she 
was  in  charge  of  the  magazine  room  the  readers  did  not  ask 
for  suggestions  about  elevated  essays.  They  grunted,  "  Wanta 
find  the  Leather  Goods  Gazette  for  last  February."  When  she 
was  giving  out  books  the  principal  query  was,  "  Can  you  tell  me 
of  a  good,  light,  exciting  love  story  to  read?  My  husband's 
going  away  for  a  week." 

She  was  fond  of  the  other  librarians;  proud  of  their  aspira* 
tions.  And  by  the  chance  of  propinquity  she  read  scores  of 
books  unnatural  to  her  gay  white  littleness:  volumes  of 
anthropology  with  ditches  of  foot-notes  filled  with  heaps  of 
small  dusty  type,  Parisian  imagistes,  Hindu  recipes  for  curry, 
voyages  to  the  Solomon  Isles,  theosophy  with  modern  American 
improvements,  treatises  upon  success  in  the  real-estate  business 


MAIN    STREET  it 

She  took  walks,  and  was  sensible  about  shoes  and  diet.  And 
never  did  she  feel  that  she  was  living. 

She  went  to  dances  and  suppers  at  the  houses  of  college 
acquaintances.  Sometimes  she  one-stepped  demurely;  some 
times,  in  dread  of  life's  slipping  past,  she  turned  into  a  bac 
chanal,  her  tender  eyes  excited,  her  throat  tense,  as  she  slid 
down  the  room. 

During  her  three  years  of  library  work  several  men  showed 
diligent  interest  in  her — the  treasurer  of  a  fur-manufacturing 
firm,  a  teacher,  a  newspaper  reporter,  and  a  petty  railroad 
official.  None  of  them  made  her  more  than  pause  in  thought. 
For  months  no  male  emerged  from  the  mass.  Then,  at  the 
Marburys',  she  met  Dr.  Will  Kennicott. 


CHAPTER  II 


IT  was  a  frail  and  blue  and  lonely  Carol  who  trotted  to  the 
flat  of  the  Johnson  Marburys  for  Sunday  evening  supper.  Mrs. 
Marbury  was  a  neighbor  and  friend  of  Carol's  sister;  Mr.  Mar- 
bury  a  traveling  representative  of  an  insurance  company.  They 
made  a  specialty  of  sandwich-salad-coffee  lap  suppers,  and  they 
regarded  Carol  as  their  literary  and  artistic  representative. 
She  was  the  one  who  could  be  depended  upon  to  appreciate  the 
Caruso  phonograph  record,  and  the  Chinese  lantern  which  Mr. 
Marbury  had  brought  back  as  his  present  from  San  Francisco. 
Carol  found  the  Marburys  admiring  and  therefore  admirable. 

This  September  Sunday  evening  she  wore  a  net  frock  with  a 
pale  pink  lining.  A  nap  had  soothed  away  the  faint  lines  of 
tiredness  beside  her  eyes.  She  was  young,  naive,  stimulated 
by  the  coolness.  She  flung  her  coat  at  the  chair  in  the  hall  of 
the  flat,  and  exploded  into  the  green-plush  living-room.  The 
familiar  group  were  trying  to  be  conversational.  She  saw  Mr. 
Marbury,  a  woman  teacher  of  gymnastics  in  a  high  school,  a 
chief  clerk  from  the  Great  Northern  Railway  offices,  a  young 
lawyer.  But  there  was  also  a  stranger,  a  thick  tall  man  of 
thirty-six  or  -seven,  with  stolid  brown  hair,  lips  used  to  giving 
orders,  eyes  which  followed  everything  good-naturedly,  and 
clothes  which  you  could  never  quite  remember. 

Mr.  Marbury  boomed,  "  Carol,  come  over  here  and  meet 
Doc  Kennicott — Dr.  Will  Kennicott  of  Gopher  Prairie.  He 
does  all  our  insurance-examining  up  in  that  neck  of  the  woods, 
and  they  do  say  he's  some  doctor!  " 

As  she  edged  toward  the  stranger  and  murmured  nothing  in 
particular,  Carol  remembered  that  Gopher  Prairie  was  a  Min 
nesota  wheat-prairie  town  of  something  over  three  thousand 
people. 

"Pleased  to  meet  you,"  stated  Dr.  Kennicott.  His  hand 
was  strong;  the  palm  soft,  but  the  back  weathered,  showing 
golden  hairs  against  firm  red  skin. 

He  looked  at  her  as  though  she  was  an  agreeable  discovery. 

12 


MAIN    STREET  13 

She  tugged  her  hand  free  and  fluttered,  "  I  must  go  out  to  the 
kitchen  and  help  Mrs.  Marbury."  She  did  not  speak  to  him 
again  till,  after  she  had  heated  the  rolls  and  passed  the 
paper  napkins,  Mr.  Marbury  captured  her  with  a  loud,  "  Oh, 
quit  fussing  now.  Come  over  here  and  sit  down  and  tell  us 
how's  tricks."  He  herded  her  to  a  sofa  with  Dr.  Kennicott, 
who  was  rather  vague  about  the  eyes,  rather  drooping  of  bulky 
shoulder,  as  though  he  was  wondering  what  he  was  expected  to 
do  next.  As  their  host  left  them,  Kennicott  awoke: 

"  Marbury  tells  me  you're  a  high  mogul  in  the  public  library. 
I  was  surprised.  Didn't  hardly  think  you  were  old  enough. 
I  thought  you  were  a  girl,  still  in  college  maybe." 

"  Oh,  I'm  dreadfully  old.  I  expect  to  take  to  a  lip-stick,  and 
to  find  a  gray  hair  any  morning  now." 

"  Huh!  You  must  be  frightfully  old— prob'ly  too  old  to  be 
my  granddaughter,  I  guess!  " 

Thus  in  the  Vale  of  Arcady  nymph  and  satyr  beguiled  the 
hours;  precisely  thus,  and  not  in  honeyed  pentameters,  dis 
coursed  Elaine  and  the  worn  Sir  Launcelot  in  the  pleached  alley. 

"  How  do  you  like  your  work?  "  asked  the  doctor. 

"  It's  pleasant,  but  sometimes  I  feel  shut  off  from  things — 
the  steel  stacks,  and  the  everlasting  cards  smeared  all  over  with 
red  rubber  stamps." 

"  Don't  you  get  sick  of  the  city?  " 

"  St.  Paul?  Why,  don't  you  like  it?  I  don't  know  of  any 
lovelier  view  than  when  you  stand  on  Summit  Avenue  and 
look  across  Lower  Town  to  the  Mississippi  cliffs  and  the  upland 
farms  beyond." 

"  I  know  but Of  course  I've  spent  nine  years  around 

the  Twin  Cities — took  my  B.A.  and  M.D.  over  at  the  U.,  and 
had  my  internship  in.  a  hospital  in  Minneapolis,  but  still,  oh 
well,  you  don't  get  to  know  folks  here,  way  you  do  up  home. 
I  feel  I've  got  something  to  say  about  running  Gopher  Prairie, 
but  you  take  it  in  a  big  city  of  two-three  hundred  thousand, 
and  I'm  just  one  flea  on  the  dog's  back.  And  then  I  like 
country  driving,  and  the  hunting  in  the  fall.  Do  you  know 
Gopher  Prairie  at  all?  " 

"  No,  but  I  hear  it's  a  very  nice  town." 

"  Nice?  Say  honestly Of  course  I  may  be  prejudiced, 

but  I've  seen  an  awful  lot  of  towns — one  time  I  went  to 
Atlantic  City  for  the  American  Medical  Association  meeting, 
and  I  spent  practically  a  week  in  New  York  I  But  I  never  saw 


14  MAIN   STREET 

a  town  that  had  such  up-and-coming  people  as  Gopher  Prairie. 
Bresnahan — you  know — the  famous  auto  manufacturer — he 
comes  from  Gopher  Prairie.  Born  and  brought  up  there  I 
And  it's  a  darn  pretty  town.  Lots  of  fine  maples  and  box- 
alders,  and  there's  two  of  the  dandiest  lakes  you  ever  saw, 
right  near  town!  And  we've  got  seven  miles  of  cement  walks 
already,  and  building  more  every  day!  Course  a  lot  of  these 
towns  still  put  up  with  plank  walks,  but  not  for  us,  you 
bet!  " 

"  Really?  " 

(Why  was  she  thinking  of  Stewart  Snyder?) 

"  Gopher  Prairie  is  going  to  have  a  great  future.  Some  of  the 
best  dairy  and  wheat  land  in  the  state  right  near  there — some 
of  it  selling  right  now  at  one-fifty  an  acre,  and  I  bet  it  will 
go  up  to  two  and  a  quarter  in  ten  years!  " 

"  Is Do  you  like  your  profession?  " 

"Nothing  like  it.  Keeps  you  out,  and  yet  you  have  a 
chance  to  loaf  in  the  office  for  a  change." 

"  I  don't  mean  that  way.  I  mean — it's  such  an  opportunity 
for  sympathy." 

Dr.  Kennicott  launched  into  a  heavy,  "Oh,  these  Dutch 
farmers  don't  want  sympathy.  All  they  need  is  a  bath  and  a 
good  dose  of  salts." 

Carol  must  have  flinched,  for  instantly  he  was  urging,  "  What 
I  mean  is — I  don't  want  you  to  think  I'm  one  of  these  old 
salts-and-quinine  peddlers,  but  I  mean:  so  many  of  my  pa 
tients  are  husky  farmers  that  I  suppose  I  get  kind  of  case- 
hardened." 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  a  doctor  could  transform  a  whole 
community,  if  he  wanted  to — if  he  saw  it.  He's  usually  the 
only  man  in  the  neighborhood  who  has  any  scientific  training, 
isn't  he?  " 

"  Yes,  that's  so,  but  I  guess  most  of  us  get  rusty.  We  land 
in  a  rut  of  obstetrics  and  typhoid  and  busted  legs.  What  we 
need  is  women  like  you  to  jump  on  us.  It'd  be  you  that  would 
transform  the  town." 

"  No,  I  couldn't.  Too  flighty.  I  did  used  to  think  about 
doing  just  that,  curiously  enough,  but  I  seem  to  have  drifted 
away  from  the  idea.  Oh,  I'm  a  fine  one  to  be  lecturing 
you!  " 

"  No!  You're  just  the  one.  You  have  ideas  without  k  /*• 
ing  lost  feminine  charm.  Say!  Don't  you  think  there's  a  lof 


MAIN   STREET  15 

of  these  women  that  go  out  for  all  these  movements  and  so  on 
that  sacrifice " 

After  his  remarks  upon  suffrage  he  abruptly  questioned  her 
about  herself.  His  kindliness  and  the  firmness  of  his  per 
sonality  enveloped  her  and  she  accepted  him  as  one  who  had 
.  a  right  to  know  what  she  thought  and  wore  and  ate  and  read. 
He  was  positive.  He  had  grown  from  a  sketched-in  stranger 
to  a  friend,  whose  gossip  was  important  news.  She  noticed  the 
healthy  solidity  of  his  chest.  His  nose,  which  had  seemed 
irregular  and  large,  was  suddenly  virile. 

She  was  jarred  out  of  this  serious  sweetness  when  Marbury 
bounced  over  to  them  and  with  horrible  publicity  yammered, 
"  Say,  what  do  you  two  think  you're  doing?  Telling  fortunes 
or  making  love?  Let  me  warn  you  that  the  doc  is  a  frisky 
bacheldore,  Carol.  Come  on  now,  folks,  shake  a  leg.  Let's 
have  some  stunts  or  a  dance  or  something." 

She  did  not  have  another  word  with  Dr.  Kennicott  until  their 
parting: 

"  Been  a  great  pleasure  to  meet  you,  Miss  Milford.  May 
I  see  you  some  time  when  I  come  down  again?  I'm  here  quite 
often — taking  patients  to  hospitals  for  majors,  and  so  on." 

«  why » 

"  What's  your  address?  " 

"  You  can  ask  Mr.  Marbury  next  time  you  come  down — if 
you  really  want  to  know!  " 

"  Want  to  know?    Say,  you  wait!  " 


Of  the  love-making  of  Carol  and  Will  Kennicott  there  is 
nothing  to  be  told  which  may  not  be  heard  on  every  summer 
evening,  on  every  shadowy  block. 

They  were  biology  and  mystery;  their  speech  was  slang 
phrases  and  flares  of  poetry;  their  silences  were  contentment, 
or  shaky  crises  when  his  arm  took  her  shoulder.  All  the 
beauty  of  youth,  first  discovered  when  it  is  passing — and  all 
the  commonplaceness  of  a  well-to-do  unmarried  man  encoun 
tering  a  pretty  girl  at  the  time  when  she  is  slightly  weary  of 
her  employment  and  sees  no  glory  ahead  nor  any  man  she 
is  glad  to  serve. 

They  liked  each  other  honestly — they  were  both  honest. 
She  was  disappointed  by  his  devotion  to  making  money,  but 


16  MAIN   STREET 

she  was  sure  that  he  did  not  lie  to  patients,  and  that  he  did 
keep  up  with  the  medical  magazines.  What  aroused  her  to 
something  more  than  liking  was  his  boyishness  when  they  went 
tramping. 

They  walked  from  St.  Paul  down  the  river  to  Mendota, 
Kennicott  more  elastic-seeming  in  a  cap  and  a  soft  crepe  shirt, 
Carol  youthful  in  a  tam-o'-shanter  of  mole  velvet,  a  blue  serge 
suit  with  an  absurdly  and  agreeably  broad  turn-down  linen 
collar,  and  frivolous  ankles  above  athletic  shoes.  The  High 
Bridge  crosses  the  Mississippi,  mounting  from  low  banks  to  a 
palisade  of  cliffs.  Far  down  beneath  it  on  the  St.  Paul  side, 
upon  mud  flats,  is  a  wild  settlement  of  chicken-infested  gardens 
and  shanties  patched  together  from  discarded  sign-boards, 
sheets  of  corrugated  iron,  and  planks  fished  out  of  the  river. 
Carol  leaned  over  the  rail  of  the  bridge  to  look  down  at  this 
Yang-tse  village;  in  delicious  imaginary  fear  she  shrieked  that 
she  was  dizzy  with  the  height ;  and  it  was  an  extremely  human 
satisfaction  to  have  a  strong  male  snatch  her  back  to  safety, 
instead  of  having  a  logical  woman  teacher  or  librarian  sniff, 
"  Well,  if  you're  scared,  why  don't  you  get  away  from  the  rail, 
then?  " 

From  the  cliffs  across  the  river  Carol  and  Kennicott  looked 
back  at  St.  Paul  on  its  hills ;  an  imperial  sweep  from  the  dome 
of  the  cathedral  to  the  dome  of  the  state  capitol. 

The  river  road  led  past  rocky  field  slopes,  deep  glens,  woods 
flamboyant  now  with  September,  to  Mendota,  white  walls  and 
a  spire  among  trees  beneath  a  hill,  old-world  in  its  placid  ease. 
And  for  this  fresh  land,  the  place  is  ancient.  Here  is  the  bold 
stone  house  which  General  Sibley,  the  king  of  fur- traders,  built 
in  1835,  with  plaster  of  river  mud,  and  ropes  of  twisted  grass 
for  laths.  It  has  an  air  of  centuries.  In  its  solid  rooms  Carol 
and  Kennicott  found  prints  from  other  days  which  the  house 
had  seen — tail-coats  of  robin's-egg  blue,  clumsy  Red  River  carts 
laden  with  luxurious  furs,  whiskered  Union  soldiers  in  slant 
forage  caps  and  rattling  sabers. 

It  suggested  to  them  a  common  American  past,  and  it  was 
memorable  because  they  had  discovered  it  together.  They 
talked  more  trustingly,  more  personally,  as  they  trudged  on. 
They  crossed  the  Minnesota  River  in  a  rowboat  ferry.  They 
climbed  the  hill  to  the  round  stone  tower  of  Fort  Snellinr. 
They  saw  the  junction  of  the  Mississippi  and  *he  Minnesota, 
and  recalled  the  men  who  had  come  here  eighty  years  ago-  - 


MAIN    STREET  17 

Maine  lumbermen,  York  traders,  soldiers  from  the  Maryland 
hills. 

"  It's  a  good  country,  and  I'm  proud  of  it.  Let's  make  it  all 
that  those  old  boys  dreamed  about,"  the  unsentimental  Kenni- 
cott  was  moved  to  vow. 

"Let's!" 

"  Come  on.  Come  to  Gopher  Prairie.  Show  us.  Make  the 
town — well — make  it  artistic.  It's  mighty  pretty,  but  I'll 
admit  we  aren't  any  too  darn  artistic.  Probably  the  lumber 
yard  isn't  as  scrumptious  as  all  these  Greek  temples.  But  go 
to  it!  Make  us  change!  " 

"  I  would  like  to.    Some  day!  " 

"  Now!  You'd  love  Gopher  Prairie.  We've  been  doing  a 
lot  with  lawns  and  gardening  the  past  few  years,  and  it's  so 

homey — the  big  trees  and And  the  best  people  on  earth. 

And  keen.  I  bet  Luke  Dawson " 

Carol  but  half  listened  to  the  names.  She  could  not  fancy 
their  ever  becoming  important  to  her. 

"  I  bet  Luke  Dawson  has  got  more  money  than  most  of  the 
swells  on  Summit  Avenue ;  and  Miss  Sherwin  in  the  high  school 
is  a  regular  wonder — reads  Latin  like  I  do  English;  and  Sam 
Clark,  the  hardware  man,  he's  a  corker — not  a  better  man  in  the 
state  to  go  hunting  with;  and  if  you  want  culture,  besides  Vida 
Sherwin  there's  Reverend  Warren,  the  Congregational  preacher, 
and  Professor  Mott,  the  superintendent  of  schools,  and  Guy 
Pollock,  the  lawyer — they  say  he  writes  regular  poetry  and — 
and  Raymie  Wutherspoon,  he's  not  such  an  awful  boob  when 

you  get  to  know  him,  and  he  sings  swell.  And And 

there's  plenty  of  others.  Lym  Cass.  Only  of  course  none  of 
them  have  your  finesse,  you  might  call  it.  But  they  don't  make 
Jem  any  more  appreciative  and  so  on.  Come  on!  We're 
ready  for  you  to  boss  us!  " 

They  sat  on  the  bank  below  the  parapet  of  the  old  fort, 
hidden  from  observation.  He  circled  her  shoulder  with  his 
arm.  Relaxed  after  the  walk,  a  chill  nipping  her  throat,  con 
scious  of  his  warmth  and  power,  she  leaned  gratefully  against 
him. 

"  You  know  I'm  in  love  with  you,  Carol!  " 

She  did  not  answer,  but  she  touched  the  back  of  his  hand 
with  an  exploring  finger. 

"  You  say  I'm  so  darn  materialistic.  How  can  I  help  it, 
unless  I  have  you  to  stir  me  up?  " 


18  MAIN   STREET 

She  did  not  answer.    She  could  not  think. 

"  You  say  a  doctor  could  cure  a  town  the  way  he  does  a 
person.  Well,  you  cure  the  town  of  whatever  ails  it,  if  any 
thing  does,  and  I'll  be  your  surgical  kit." 

She  did  not  follow  his  words,  only  the  burring  resoluteness 
of  them. 

She  was  shocked,  thrilled,  as  he  kissed  her  cheek  and  cried, 
"  There's  no  use  saying  things  and  saying  things  and  saying 
things.  Don't  my  arms  talk  to  you — now?  " 

"  Oh,  please,  please!  "  She  wondered  if  she  ought  to  be 
angry,  but  it  was  a  drifting  thought,  and  she  discovered  that 
she  was  crying. 

Then  they  were  sitting  six  inches  apart,  pretending  that  they 
had  never  been  nearer,  while  she  tried  to  be  impersonal : 

"  I  would  like  to — would  like  to  see  Gopher  Prairie." 

"Trust  me!  Here  she  is!  Brought  some  snapshots  down 
to  show  you." 

Her  cheek  near  his  sleeve,  she  studied  a  dozen  village  pic 
tures.  They  were  streaky;  she  saw  only  trees,  shrubbery,  a 
porch  indistinct  in  leafy  shadows.  But  she  exclaimed  over  the 
lakes:  dark  water  reflecting  wooded  bluffs,  a  flight  of  ducks,  a 
fisherman  in  shirt  sleeves  and  a  wide  straw  hat,  holding  up  a 
string  of  croppies.  One  winter  picture  of  the  edge  of  Plover 
Lake  had  the  air  of  an  etching:  lustrous  slide  of  ice,  snow  in 
the  crevices  of  a  boggy  bank,  the  mound  of  a  muskrat  house, 
reeds  in  thin  black  lines,  arches  of  frosty  grasses.  It  was  an 
impression  of  cool  clear  vigor. 

"  How'd  it  be  to  skate  there  for  a  couple  of  hours,  or  go 
zinging  along  on  a  fast  ice-boat,  and  skip  back  home  for  coffee 
and  some  hot  wienies?  "  he  demanded. 

"  It  might  be— fun." 

"  But  here's  the  picture.  Here's  where  you  come  in." 

A  photograph  of  a  forest  clearing:  pathetic  new  furrows 
straggling  among  stumps,  a  clumsy  log  cabin  chinked  with 
mud  and  roofed  with  hay.  In  front  of  it  a  sagging  woman  with 
tight-drawn  hair,  and  a  baby  bedraggled,  smeary,  glorious- 
eyed. 

"  Those  are  the  kind  of  folks  I  practise  among,  good  share 
of  the  time.  Nels  Erdstrom,  fine  clean  young  Svenska.  Herl 

have  a  corking  farm  in  ten  years,  but  now I  operated  h:S 

wife  on  a  kitchen  table,  with  my  driver  giving  the  anesthetic. 
Look  at  that  scared  baby!  Needs  some  woman  with  hands 


MAIN   STREET  19 

like  yours.  Waiting  for  you!  Just  look  at  that  baby's  eyes, 
look  how  he's  begging " 

"Don't!  They  hurt  me.  Oh,  it  would  be  sweet  to  help 
him — so  sweet." 

As  his  arms  moved  toward  ner  sne  answered  all  her  doubts 
with  "  Sweet,  so  sweet. 


CHAPTER  EL 


UNDER  the  rolling  clouds  of  the  prairie  a  moving  mass  of 
steel.    An  irritable  clank  and  rattle  beneath  a  prolonged  roar 
The  sharp  scent  of  oranges  cutting  the  soggy  smell  of  un- 
bathed  people  and  ancient  baggage. 

Towns  as  planless  as  a  scattering  of  pasteboard  boxes  on  an 
attic  floor.  The  stretch  of  faded  gold  stubble  broken  only  by 
clumps  of  willows  encircling  white  houses  and  red  barns. 

No.  7,  the  way  train,  grumbling  through  Minnesota,  im 
perceptibly  climbing  the  giant  tableland  that  slopes  in  a  thou 
sand-mile  rise  from  hot  Mississippi  bottoms  to  the  Rockies. 

It  is  September,  hot,  very  dusty. 

There  is  no  smug  Pullman  attached  to  the  train,  and  tht 
day  coaches  of  the  East  are  replaced  by  free  chair  cars,  with 
each  seat  cut  into  two  adjustable  plush  chairs,  the  head-rests 
covered  with  doubtful  linen  towels.  Halfway  down  the  car  is 
a  semi-partition  of  carved  oak  columns,  but  the  aisle  is  of 
bare,  splintery,  grease-blackened  wood.  There  is  no  porter, 
no  pillows,  no  provision  for  beds,  but  all  today  and  all  tonight 
they  will  ride  in  this  long  steel  box — farmers  with  perpetually 
tired  wives  and  children  who  seem  all  to  be  of  the  same  age; 
workmen  going  to  new  jobs;  traveling  salesmen  with  derbies 
and  freshly  shined  shoes. 

They  are  parched  and  cramped,  the  lines  of  their  hands  filled 
with  grime ;  they  go  to  sleep  curled  in  distorted  attitudes,  heads 
against  the  window-panes  or  propped  on  rolled  coats  on  seat- 
arms,  and  legs  thrust  into  the  aisle.  They  do  not  read;  ap 
parently  they  do  not  think.  They  wait.  An  early-wrinkled, 
young-old  mother,  moving  as  though  her  joints  were  dry,  opens 
a  suit-case  in  which  are  seen  creased  blouses,  a  pair  of  slippers 
worn  through  at  the  toes,  a  bottle  of  patent  medicine,  a  tin 
cup,  a  paper-covered  book  about  dreams  which  the  news- 
butcher  has  coaxed  her  into  buying.  She  brings  out  a  graham 
cracker  which  she  feeds  to  a  baby  lying  flat  on  a  seat  and 
wailing  hopelessly.  Most  of  the  crumbs  drop  on  the  red  plush 

20 


MAIN   STREET  ft 


of  the  reat,  and  the  woman  sighs  and  tries  to  brush 
away,  but  they  leap  up  impishly  and  fall  back  on  the  plush. 

A  soiled  ma'n  and  woman  munch  sandwiches  and  throw  the 
crusts  on  the  floor.  A  large  brick-colored  Norwegian  takes  oft 
his  shoes,  grunts  in  relief,  and  props  his  feet  in  their  thick 
gray  socks  against  the  seat  in  front  of  him. 

An  old  woman  whose  toothless  mouth  shuts  like  a  mud- 
turtle's,  and  whose  hair  is  not;  so  much  white  as  yellow  like 
moldy  linen,  with  bands  of  pink  skull  apparent  between  the 
tresses,  anxiously  lifts  her  bag,  opens  it,  peers  in,  closes  it,  puts 
it  under  the  seat,  and  hastily  picks  it  up  and  opens  it  and  hides 
it  all  over  again.  The  bag  is  full  of  treasures  and  of  memo 
ries:  a  leather  buckle,  an  ancient  band-concert  program,  scrap* 
of  ribbon,  lace,  satin.  In  the  aisle  beside  her  is  an  extremely 
indignant  parrakeet  in  a  cage. 

Two  facing  seats,  overflowing  with  a  Slovene  iron-minerV 
family,  are  littered  with  shoes,  dolls,  whisky  bottles,  bundles 
wrapped  in  newspapers,  a  sewing  bag.  The  oldest  boy  takes 
a  mouth-organ  out  of  his  coat  pocket,  wipes  the  tobacco 
crumbs  off,  and  plays  "  Marching  through  Georgia  "  till  every 
head  in  the  car  begins  to  ache. 

The  news-butcher  comes  through  selling  chocolate  bars  and 
lemon  drops.  A  girl-child  ceaselessly  trots  down  to  the  water- 
cooler  and  back  to  her  seat.  The  stiff  paper  envelope  which 
she  uses  for  cup  drips  in  the  aisle  as  she  goes,  and  on  each  trip 
she  stumbles  over  the  feet  of  a  carpenter,  who  grunts^  "  Ouchl 
Look  out!  " 

The  dust-caked  doors  are  open,  and  from  the  smoking-car 
drifts  back  a  visible  blue  line  of  stinging  tobacco  smoke,  and 
with  it  a  crackle  of  laughter  over  the  story  which  the  young 
mar  in  the  bright  blue  suit  and  lavender  tie  and  light  yellow 
shoes  has  just  told  to  the  squat  man  in  garage  overalls. 

The  smell  grows  constantly  thicker,  more  stale. 


To  each  of  the  passengers  his  seat  was  his  temporary  home, 
and  most  of  the  passengers  were  slatternly  housekeepers.  But 
ope  seat  looked  clean  and  deceptively  cool.  In  it  were  an  ob 
viously  prosperous  man  and  a  black-haired,  fine-skinned  girl 
whose  pumps  rested  on  an  immaculate  horsehide  bag. 

They  were  Dr.  Will  Kennicott  and  his  bride,  Carol. 


22  MAIN   STREET 

They  had  been  married  at  the  end  of  a  year  of  conversa 
tional  courtship,  and  they  were  on  their  way  to  Gopher  Prairie 
after  a  wedding  journey  in  the  Colorado  mountains. 

The  hordes  of  the  way-train  were  not  altogether  new  to 
Carol.  She  had  seen  them  on  trips  from  St,  Paul  to  Chicago. 
But  now  that  they  had  become  her  own  people,  to  bathe  and 
encourage  and  adorn,  she  had  an  acute  and  uncomfortable 
interest  in  them.  They  distressed  her.  They  were  so  stolid. 
She  had  always  maintained  that  there  is  no  American  peas 
antry,  and  she  sought  now  to  defend  her  faith  by  seeing  imagi 
nation  and  enterprise  in  the  young  Swedish  farmers,  aiid  in  a 
traveling  man  working  over  his  order-blanks.  But  tha  older 
people,  Yankees  as  well  as  Norwegians,  Germans,  Finns, 
Canucks,  had  settled  into  submission  to  poverty.  They  were 
peasants,  she  groaned. 

"  Isn't  there  any  way  of  waking  them  up?  What  would 
happen  if  they  understood  scientific  agriculture?  "  she  begged 
of  Kennicott,  her  hand  groping  for  his. 

It  had  been  a  transforming  honeymoon.  She  had  been 
frightened  to  discover  how  tumultuous  a  feeling  could  be 
roused  in  her.  Will  had  been  lordly — stalwart,  jolly,  impress 
ively  competent  in  making  camp,  tender  and  understanding 
through  the  hours  when  they  had  lain  side  by  side  in  a  tent 
pitched  among  pines  high  up  on  a  lonely  mountain  spur. 

His  hand  swallowed  hers  as  he  started  from  thoughts  of 
the  practise  to  which  he  was  returning.  "  These  people?  Wake 
'em  up?  What  for?  They're  happy." 

"  But  they're  so  provincial.  No,  that  isn't  what  I  mean. 
They're — oh,  so  sunk  in  the  mud." 

"  Look  here,  Carrie.  You  want  to  get  over  your  city  ic'ea 
that  because  a  man's  pants  aren't  pressed,  he's  a  fool,  These 
farmers  are  mighty  keen  and  up-and-coming." 

"  I  know!  That's  what  hurts.  Life  seems  so  hard  for  them 
—these  lonely  farms  and  this  gritty  train." 

"  Oh,  they  don't  mind  it.  Besides,  things  are  changing. 
The  auto,  the  telephone,  rural  free  delivery;  they're  bringing 
the  farmers  in  closer  touch  with  the  town.  Takes  time,  you 
know,  to  change  a  wilderness  like  this  was  fifty  year?  ?fzo, 
But  already,  why,  they  can  hop  into  the  Ford  or  the  Over-^nd 
and  get  in  to  the  movies  on  Saturday  evening  quicker  than  you 
could  get  down  to  'em  by  trolley  in  St.  Paul." 

"  But  if  it's  these  towns  we've  beefc  passing  that  the  farm*  ir 


MAIN    STREET  23 

run  to  for  relief  from  their  bleakness Can't  you  under 
stand?    Just  look  at  them!  " 

Kennicott  was  amazed.  Ever  since  childhood  he  had  seen 
these  towns  from  trains  on  this  same  line.  He  grumbled, 
"  Why,  what's  the  matter  with  'em?  Good  hustling  burgs.  It 
would  astonish  you  to  know  how  much  wheat  and  rye  and 
corn  and  potatoes  they  ship  in  a  year." 

"  But  they're  so  ugly." 

"I'll  admit  they  aren't  comfy  like  Gopher  Prairie.  But 
give  'em  time." 

"  What's  the  use  of  giving  them  time  unless  some  one  has 
desire  and  training  enough  to  plan  them?  Hundreds  of  fac 
tories  trying  to  make  attractive  motor  cars,  but  these  towns — 
left  to  chance.  No!  That  can't  be  true.  It  must  have  taken 
genius  to  make  them  so  scrawny!  " 

"Oh,  they're  not  so  bad,"  was  all  he  answered.  He  pre 
tended  that  his  hand  was  the  cat  and  hers  the  mouse.  For 
the  first  time  she  tolerated  him  rather  than  encouraged  him. 
She  was  staring  out  at  Schoenstrom,  a  hamlet  of  perhaps  a  hun 
dred  and  fifty  inhabitants,  at  which  the  train  was  stopping. 

A  bearded  German  and  his  pucker-mouthed  wife  tugged  their 

enormous   imitation-leather  satchel   from  under   a   seat  and 

waddled  out.    The  station  agent  hoisted  a  dead  calf  aboard  the 

/  baggage-car.      There    were    no    other    visible    activities    in 

/  Schoenstrom.    In  the  quiet  of  the  halt,  Carol  could  hear  a  horse 

/   kicking  his  stall,  a  carpenter  shingling  a  roof. 

The  business-center  of  Schoenstrom  took  up  one  side  of  one 
block,  facing  the  railroad.    It  was  a  row  of  one-story  shops 
covered  with  galvanized  iron,  or  with  clapboards  painted  red 
and  bilious  yellow.    The  buildings  were  as  ill-assorted,  as  tem 
porary-looking,  as  a  mining-camp  street  in  the  motion-pictures. 
The  railroad  station  was  a  one-room  frame  box,  a  mirey  cattle- 
pen  on  one  side  and  a  crimson  wheat-elevator  on  the  other. 
The  elevator,  with  its  cupola  on  the  ridge  of  a  shingled  roof, 
resembled   a   broad-shouldered   man   with   a   small,   vicious, 
>  pointed  head.    The  only  habitable  structures  to  be  seen  were 
\  the  florid  red-brick  Catholic  church  and  rectory  at  the  end  of 
\  Main  Street. 

Carol  picked  at  Kennicott's  sleeve.  "  You  wouldn't  call  this 
a  not-so-bad  town,  would  you?  " 

"  Thf-e  Dutch  burgs  are  kind  of  slow.     Still,  at  that 

See  that  fellow  coming  out  of  the  general  store  there,  getting 


24  MAIN   STREET 

into  the  big  car?  I  met  him  once.  He  owns  about  half  the 
town,  besides  the  store.  Rauskukle,  his  name  is.  He  owns  a 
lot  of  mortgages,  and  he  gambles  in  farm-lands.  Good  nut  on 
him,  that  fellow.  Why,  they  say  he's  worth  three  or  four 
hundred  thousand  dollars!  Got  a  dandy  great  big  yellow 
brick  house  with  tiled  walks  and  a  garden  and  everything,  other 
end  of  town — can't  see  it  from  here — I've  gone  past  it  when 
I've  driven  through  here.  Yes  sir!  " 

"  Then,  if  he  has  all  that,  there's  no  excuse  whatever  for  this 
place!  If  his  three  hundred  thousand  went  back  into  the  town, 
where  it  belongs,  they  could  burn  up  these  shacks,  and  build 
a  dream- village,  a  jewel!  Why  do  the  farmers  and  the  town- 
people  let  the  Baron  keep  it?  " 

"  I  must  say  I  don't  quite  get  you  sometimes,  Carrie.  Let 
him?  They  can't  help  themselves!  He's  a  dumm  old  Dutch 
man,  and  probably  the  priest  can  twist  him  around  his  finger, 
but  when  it  comes  to  picking  good  farming  land,  he's  a  regular 
Wiz!  " 

"  I  see.  He's  their  symbol  of  beauty.  The  town  erects  him, 
^jastead  of  erecting  buildings." 

"  Honestly,  don't  know  what  you're  driving  at.  You're  kind 
of  played  out,  after  this  long  trip.  You'll  feel  better  when  you 
cet  home  and  have  a  good  bath,  and  put  on  the  blue  neglige  3. 
that's  some  vampire  costume,  you  witch!  " 

He  squeezed  her  arm,  looked  at  her  knowingly. 

They  moved  on  from  the  desert  stillness  of  the  Schoenstrom 
Station.  The  train  creaked,  banged,  swayed.  The  air  was 
nauseatingly  thick.  Kennicott  turned  her  face  from  the  w.'a- 
dow,  rested  her  head  on  his  shoulder.  She  was  coaxed  from 
her  unhappy  mood.  But  she  came  out  of  it  unwillingly,  pud 
when  Kennicott  was  satisfied  that  he  had  corrected  all  her  wor 
ries  and  had  opened  a  magazine  of  saffron  detective  stories 
she  sat  upright. 

Here — she  meditated — is  the  newest  empire  of  the  we  rid; 
the  Northern  Middlewest;  a  land  of  dairy  herds  and  exouis;*e 
lakes,  of  new  automobiles  and  tar-paper  shanties  and  silos  like 
red  towers,  of  clumsy  speech  and  a  hope  that  is  boundless.  An 
empire  which  feeds  a  quarter  of  the  world — yet  its  work  is 
merely  begun.  They  are  pioneers,  these  sweaty  wayfarers,  for 
all  their  telephones  and  bank-accounts  and  automatic  pbtios 
and  co-operative  leagues.  And  for  all  its  fat  richness,  theirs 
is  a  pioneer  land.  What  is  its  future?  she  wondered.  A 


MAIN   STREET  25 

future  of  cities  and  factory  smut  where  now  are  loping  empty 
fields?  Homes  universal  and  secure?  Or  placid  chateaux 
ringed  with  sullen  huts?  Youth  free  to  find  knowledge  and 
laughter?  Willingness  to  sift  the  sanctified  lies?  Or  creamy- 
skinned  fat  women,  smeared  with  grease  and  chalk,  gorgeous  in 
the  skins  of  beasts  and  the  bloody  feathers  of  slain  birds,  play 
ing  bridge  with  puffy  pink-nailed  jeweled  fingers,  women  who- 
after  much  expenditure  of  labor  and  bad  temper  still  grotesquely 
resemble  their  own  flatulent  lap-dogs?  The  ancient  stale  in 
equalities,  or  something  different  in  history,  unlike  the  te 
dious  maturity  of  other  empires?  What  future  and  what 
hope? 

Carol's  head  ached  with  the  riddle. 

She  saw  the  prairie,  flat  in  giant  patches  or  rolling  in  long 
hummocks.  The  width  and  bigness  of  it,  which  had  expanded 
her  spirit  an  hour  ago,  began  to  frighten  her.  It  spread  out 
so;  it  went  on  so  uncontrollably;  she  could  never  know  it. 
Kennicott  was  closeted  in  his  detective  story.  With  the  loneli 
ness  which  comes  most  depressingly  in  the  midst  of  many 
people  she  tried  to  forget  problems,  to  look  at  the  prairie  ob 
jectively. 

The  grass  beside  the  railroad  had  been  burnt  over;  it  was 
a  smudge  prickly  with  charred  stalks  of  weeds.  Beyond  the 
undeviating  barbed-wire  fences  were  clumps  of  golden  rod. 
Only  this  thin  hedge  shut  them  off  from  the  plains — shorn 
wheat-lands  of  autumn,  a  hundred  acres  to  a  field,  prickly  and 
gray  near-by  but  in  the  blurred  distance  like  tawny  velvet 
stretched  over  dipping  hillocks.  The  long  rows  of  wheat- 
shocks  marched  like  soldiers  in  worn  yellow  tabards.  The 
newly  plowed  fields  were  black  banners  fallen  on  the  distant 
Slope.  It  was  a  martial  immensity,  vigorous,  a  little  harsh, 
unsoftened  by  kindly  gardens. 

The  expanse  was  relieved  by  clumps  of  oaks  with  patches 
of  short  wild  grass;  and  every  mile  or  two  was  a  chain  of 
cobalt  slews,  with  the  flicker  of  blackbirds'  wings  across 
them. 

All  this  working  land  was  turned  into  exuberance  by  the 
light.  The  sunshine  was  dizzy  on  open  stubble ;  shadows  from 
immense  cumulus  clouds  were  forever  sliding  across  low 
mounds ;  and  the  sky  was  wider  and  loftier  and  more  resolutely 
blue  than  the  sky  of  cities  .  .  .  she  declared. 

i(  It's  a  glorious  country;  a  land  to  be  big  in,"  she  crooned. 


26  MAIN   STREET 

Then  Kennicott  startled  her  by  chuckling,  "  D'  you  realize 
the  town  after  the  next  is  Gopher  Prairie?    Home!  " 


m 

That  one  word — home — it  terrified  her.  Had  she  really 
bound  herself  to  live,  inescapably,  in  this  town  called  Gopher 
Prairie?  And  this  thick  man  beside  her,  who  dared  to  define 
her  future,  he  was  a  stranger!  She  turned  in  her  seat,  stared 
at  him.  Who  was  he?  Why  was  he  sitting  with  her?  He 
wasn't  of  her  kind!  His  neck  was  heavy;  his  speech  was 
heavy;  he  was  twelve  or  thirteen  years  older  than  she;  and 
about  him  was  none  of  the  magic  of  shared  adventures  and 
eagerness.  She  could  not  believe  that  she  had  ever  slept 
in  his  arms.  That  was  one  of  the  dreams  which  you  had  but 
did  not  officially  admit. 

She  told  herself  how  good  he  was,  how  dependable  and 
understanding.  She  touched  his  ear,  smoothed  the  plane  of  his 
solid  jaw,  and,  turning  away  again,  concentrated  upon  liking 
his  town.  It  wouldn't  be  like  these  barren  settlements.  It 
couldn't  be!  Why,  it  had  three  thousand  population.  That 
was  a  great  many  people.  There  would  be  six  hundred  houses 

or  more.  And The  lakes  near  it  would  be  so  lovely. 

She'd  seen  them  in  the  photographs.  They  had  looked  charm 
ing  .  .  .  hadn't  they? 

As  the  train  left  Wahkeenyan  she  began  nervously  to  watch 
for  the  lakes — the  entrance  to  all  her  future  life.  But  when 
she  discovered  them,  to  the  left  of  the  track,  her  only  im 
pression  of  them  was  that  they  resembled  the  photographs. 

A  mile  from  Gopher  Prairie  the  track  mounts  a  curving  low 
ridge,  and  she  could  see  the  town  as  a  whole.  With  a  passionate 
jerk  she  pushed  up  the  window,  looked  out,  the  arched  fingers 
of  her  left  hand  trembling  on  the  sill,  her  right  hand  at  her 
breast. 

And  she  saw  that  Gopher  Prairie  was  merely  an  enlargement 
of  all  the  hamlets  which  they  had  been  passing.  Only  to  the 
eyes  of  a  Kennicott  was  it  exceptional.  The  huddled  low 
wooden  houses  broke  the  plains  scarcely  more  than  would  a 
hazel  thicket.  The  fields  swept  up  to  it,  past  it.  It  was  v.i- 
protected  and  unprotecting;  there  was  no  dignity  ;n  it  r?or 
any  hope  of  greatness.  Only  the  tall  red  grain-elevator  and  i 
few  tinny  church-steeples  rose  from  the  mass.  It  was  a 


MAIN    STREET  27 

frontier  camp.  It  was  not  a  place  to  live  in,  not  possibly, 
not  conceivably. 

The  people — they'd  be  as  drab  as  their  houses,  as  flat  as 
their  fields.  She  couldn't  stay  here.  She  would  have  to 
wrench  loose  from  this  man,  and  flee. 

She  peeped  at  him.  She  was  at  once  helpless  before  his 
mature  fixity,  and  touched  by  his  excitement  as  he  sent  his 
magazine  skittering  along  the  aisle,  stooped  for  their  bags,  came 
up  with  flushed  face,  and  gloated,  "  Here  we  are!  " 

She  smiled  loyally,  and  looked  away.  The  train  was  enter 
ing  town.  The  houses  on  the  outskirts  were  dusky  old  red 
mansions  with  wooden  frills,  or  gaunt  frame  shelters  like  grocery 
boxes,  or  new  bungalows  with  concrete  foundations  imitating 
stone. 

Now  the  train  was  passing  the  elevator,  the  grim  storage- 
tanks  for  oil,  a  creamery,  a  lumber-yard,  a  stock-yard  muddy 
and  trampled  and  stinking.  Now  they  were  stopping  at  a 
squat  red  frame  station,  the  platform  crowded  with  unshaven 
farmers  and  with  loafers — unadventurous  people  with  dead 
eyes.  She  was  here.  She  could  not  go  on.  It  was  the  end — 
the  end  of  the  world.  She  sat  with  closed  eyes,  longing  to 
push  past  Kennicott,  hide  somewhere  in  the  train,  flee  on 
toward  the  Pacific. 

Something  large  arose  in  her  soul  and  commanded,  "  Stop 
it!  Stop  being  a  whining  baby!  "  She  stood  up  quickly;  she 
said,  "  Isn't  it  wonderful  to  be  here  at  last!  " 

He  trusted  her  so.  She  would  make  herself  like  the  place. 
And  she  was  going  to  do  tremendous  things 

She  followed  Kennicott  and  the  bobbing  ends  of  the  two  bags 
which  he  carried.  They  were  held  back  by  the  slow  line  of 
disembarking  passengers.  She  reminded  herself  that  she  was 
actually  at  the  dramatic  moment  of  the  bride's  home-coming. 
She  ought  to  feel  exalted.  She  felt  nothing  at  all  except  ir 
ritation  at  their  slow  progress  toward  the  door. 

Kennicott  stooped  to  peer  through  the  windows.  He  shyly 
exulted: 

"  Look!  Look!  There's  a  bunch  come  down  to  welcome  us! 
Sam  Clark  and  the  missus  and  Dave  Dyer  and  Jack  Elder, 
and,  yes  sir,  Harry  Haydock  and  Juanita,  and  a  whole  crowd! 
I  guess  they  see  us  now.  Yuh,  yuh  sure,  they  see  us!  See  'em 
waving!  " 

She  obediently  bent  her  head  to  look  out  at  them.    She  had 


28  MAIN   STREET 

hold  of  herself.    She  was  ready  to  love  them.    But  she  was 

embarrassed  by  the  heartiness  of  the  cheering  group.    From 

the  vestibule  she  waved  to  them,  but  she  clung  a  second  to  the 

sleeve  of  the  brakeman  who  helped  her  down  before  she  had 

the  courage  to  dive  into  the  cataract  of  hand-shaking  people, 

i    people  whom  she  could  not  tell  apart.    She  had  the  impression 

\    that  all  the  men  had  coarse  voices,  large  damp  hands,  tooth- 

\brush  mustaches,  bald  spots,  and  Masonic  watch-charms. 

She  knew  that  they  were  welcoming  her.  Their  hands,  their 
smiles,  their  shouts,  their  affectionate  eyes  overcame  her.  She 
stammered,  "  Thank  you,  oh,  thank  you!  " 

One  of  the  men  was  clamoring  at  Kennicott,  "  I  brought  my 
machine  down  to  take  you  home,  doc." 

"  Fine  business,  Sam!  "  cried  Kennicott;  and,  to  Carol, 
"  Let's  jump  in.  That  big  Paige  over  there.  Some  boat,  too, 
believe  me!  Sam  can  show  speed  to  any  of  these  Marmons 
from  Minneapolis!  " 

Only  when  she  was  in  the  motor  car  did  she  distinguish  the 
three  people  who  were  to  accompany  them.  The  owner,  now 
at  the  wheel,  was  the  essence  of  decent  self-satisfaction;  a 
baldish,  largish,  level-eyed  man,  rugged  of  neck  but  sleek  and 
round  of  face — face  like  the  back  of  a  spoon  bowl.  He  was 
chuckling  at  her,  "  Have  you  got  us  all  straight  yet?  " 

"Course  she  has!  Trust  Carrie  to  get  things  straight  and 
get  'em  darn  quick!  I  bet  she  could  tell  you  every  date  in 
history!  "  boasted  her  husband. 

But  the  man  looked  at  her  reassuringly  and  with  a  certainty 
that  he  was  a  person  whom  she  could  trust  she  confessed, 
"  As  a  matter  of  fact  I  haven't  got  anybody  straight." 

"  Course  you  haven't,  child.  Well,  I'm  Sam  Clark,  dealer 
in  hardware,  sporting  goods,  cream  separators,  and  almost  any 
kind  of  heavy  junk  you  can  think  of.  You  can  call  me  Sam — 
anyway,  I'm  going  to  call  you  Carrie,  seein'  's  you've  been 
and  gone  and  married  this  poor  fish  of  a  bum  medic  that  we 
keep  round  here."  Carol  smiled  lavishly,  and  wished  that  she 
called  people  by  their  given  names  more  easily.  "  The  fat 
cranky  lady  back  there  beside  you,  who  is  pretending  that  she 
can't  hear  me  giving  her  away,  is  Mrs.  Sam'l  Clark;  and  this 
hungry-looking  squirt  up  here  beside  me  is  Dave  Dyer,  who 
keeps  his  drug  store  running  by  not  filling  your  hubby's  pre 
scriptions  right — fact  you  might  say  he's  the  guy  that  put  the 
fshun'  in  'prescription.'  So!  Well,  leave  us  take  the  jo 


MAIN   STREET  29 

bride  home.  Say,  doc,  111  sell  you  the  Candersen  place  for 
three  thousand  plunks.  Better  be  thinking  about  building  a 
new  home  for  Carrie.  Prettiest  Frau  in  G.  P.,  if  you  asks  me!  " 

Contentedly  Sam  Clark  drove  off,  in  the  heavy  traffic  of 
three  Fords  and  the  Minniemashie  House  Free  'Bus. 

"I  shall  like  Mr.  Clark  ...  I  can't  call  him  'Sam'! 
They're  all  so  friendly."  She  glanced  at  the  houses;  tried 
not  to  see  what  she  saw;  gave  way  in:  "  Why  do  these  stories 
lie  so?  They  always  make  the  bride's  home-coming  a  bower 
of  roses.  Complete  trust  in  noble  spouse.  Lies  about  mar 
riage.  I'm  not  changed.  And  this  town — O  my  God!  I 
can't  go  through  with  it.  This  junk-heap!  " 

Her  husband  bent  over  her.  "  You  look  like  you  were  in 
a  brown  study.  Scared?  I  don't  expect  you  to  think  Gopher 
Prairie  is  a  paradise,  after  St.  Paul.  I  don't  expect  you  to  be 
crazy  about  it,  at  first.  But  you'll  come  to  like  it  so  much — 
life's  so  free  here  and  best  people  on  earth." 

She  whispered  to  him  (while  Mrs.  Clark  considerately 
turned  away),  "  I  love  you  for  understanding.  I'm  just — I'm 
beastly  over-sensitive.  Too  many  books.  It's  my  lack  of 
shoulder-muscles  and  sense.  Give  me  time,  dear." 

"  You  bet!    All  the  time  you  want!  " 

She  laid  the  back  of  his  hand  against  her  cheek,  snuggled 
near  him.  She  was  ready  for  her  new  home. 

Kennicott  had  told  her  that,  with  his  widowed  mother  as 
housekeeper,  he  had  occupied  an  old  house,  "  but  nice  and 
roomy,  and  well-heated,  best  furnace  I  could  find  on  the 
market."  His  mother  had  left  Carol  her  love,  and  gone  back 
to  Lac-qui-Meurt. 

It  would  be  wonderful,  she  exulted,  not  to  have  to  live  in 
Other  People's  Houses,  but  to  make  her  own  shrine.  She 
held  his  hand  tightly  and  stared  ahead  as  the  car  swung 
round  a  corner  and  stopped  in  the  street  before  a  prosaic 
frame  house  in  a  small  parched  lawn. 


IV 

parking"  of  grass  and  mud. 
A  square  smug  brown  house,  rather  damp.  A  narrow  concrete 
walk  up  to  it.  Sickly  yellow  leaves  in  a  windrow  with  dried 
wings  of  box-elder  seeds  and  snags  of  wool  from  the  cotton- 
woods.  A  screened  porch  with  pillars  of  thin  painted  pine 


30  MAINSTKEET 

surmounted  by  scrolls  and  brackets  and  bumps  of  jigsawed 
wood.  No  shrubbery  to  shut  off  the  public  gaze.  A  lugu 
brious  bay-window  to  the  right  of  the  porch.  Window  curtains 
of  starched  cheap  lace  revealing  a  pink  marble  table  with  a 
conch  shell  and  a  Family  Bible. 

"  You'll  find  it  old-fashioned — what  do  you  call  it? — Mid- 
Victorian.  I  left  it  as  is,  so  you  could  make  any  changes  you 
felt  were  necessary."  Kennicott  sounded  doubtful  for  the 
first  time  since  he  had  come  back  to  his  own. 

"  It's  a  real  home!  "  She  was  moved  by  his  humility.  She 
gaily  motioned  good-by  to  the  Clarks.  He  unlocked  the  door — 
he  was  leaving  the  choice  of  a  maid  to  her,  and  there  was 
no  one  in  the  house.  She  jiggled  while  he  turned  the  key, 
and  scampered  in.  ...  It  was  next  day  before  either 
of  them  remembered  that  in  their  honeymoon  camp  they  had 
planned  that  he  should  carry  her  over  the  sill. 

In  hallway  and  front  parlor  she  was  conscious  of  dinginess 
and  lugubriousness  and  airlessness,  but  she  insisted,  "  I'll  make 
it  all  jolly."  As  she  followed  Kennicott  and  the  bags  up  to 
their  bedroom  she  quavered  to  herself  the  song  of  the  fat 
little  gods  of  the  hearth: 

I  have  my  own  home, 

To  do  what  I  please  with, 

To  do  what  I  please  with,  ' 

My  den  for  me  and  my  mate  and  my  cubs, 

My  own ! 

She  was  close  in  her  husband's  arms;  she  clung  to  him; 
whatever  of  strangeness  and  slowness  and  insularity  she  might 
find  in  him,  none  of  that  mattered  so  long  as  she  could  slip 
her  hands  beneath  his  coat,  run  her  fingers  over  the  warm 
smoothness  of  the  satin  back  of  his  waistcoat,  seem  almost  to 
creep  into  his  body,  find  in  him  strength,  find  in  the  courage 
and  kindness  of  her  man  a  shelter  from  the  perplexing  world 

"  Sweet,  so  sweet,"  she  whispered. 


CHAPTER  IV 


11  THE  Clarks  have  invited  some  folks  to  their  house  to  meet 
us,  tonight,"  said  Kennicott,  as  he  unpacked  his  suit-case. 

"  Oh,  that  is  nice  of  them!  " 

"  You  bet.    I  told  you  you'd  like  'em.    Squarest  people  on 

earth.    Uh,  Carrie Would  you  mind  if  I  sneaked  down  to 

the  office  for  an  hour,  just  to  see  how  things  are?  " 

"  Why,  no.  Of  course  not.  I  know  you're  keen  to  get  back 
to  work." 

"  Sure  you  don't  mind?  " 

"  Not  a  bit.    Out  of  my  way.    Let  me  unpack." 

But  the  advocate  of  freedom  in  marriage  was  as  much  dis 
appointed  as  a  drooping  bride  at  the  alacrity  with  which 
took  that  freedom  and  escaped  to  the  world  of  men's  affairs- 
She  gazed  about  their  bedroom,  and  its  full  dismalness  crawled 
over  her:  the  awkward  knuckly  L-shape  of  it;  the  black  walnut 
bed  with  apples  and  spotty  pears  carved  on  the  headboard ;  the 
imitation  maple  bureau,  with  pink-daubed  scent-bottles  and  a 
petticoated  pin-cushion  on  a  marble  slab  uncomfortably  like  a 
gravestone;  the  plain  pine  washstand  and  the  garlanded  water- 
pitcher  and  bowl.  The  scent  was  of  horsehair  and  plush  and 
Florida  Water. 

"  How  could  people  ever  live  with  things  like  this?  "  she 
shuddered.  She  saw  the  furniture  as  a  circle  of  elderly  judges, 
condemning  her  to  death  by  smothering.  The  tottering  bro 
cade  chair  squeaked,  "  Choke  her — choke  her — smother  her." 
The  old  linen  smelled  of  the  tomb.  She  was  alone  in  this 
house,  this  strange  still  house,  among  the  shadows  of  dead 
thoughts  and  haunting  repressions.  "  I  hate  it!  I  hate  it!  " 
she  panted.  "Why  did  I  ever " 

She  remembered  that  Kennicott's  mother  had  brought  these 
iamily  relics  from  the  old  home  in  Lac-qui-Meurt.  "  Stop  it! 
They're  perfectly  comfortable  things.  They're — comfortable. 

Besides Oh,  they're  horrible!    We'll  change  them,  right 

away." 

ax 


32  MAIN   STREET 

Then,  "  But  of  course  he  has  to  see  how  things  are  at  the 
office " 

She  made  a  pretense  of  busying  herself  with  unpacking.  The 
chintz-lined,  silver-fitted  bag  which  had  seemed  so  desirable  a 
luxury  in  St.  Paul  was  an  extravagant  vanity  here.  The  dar 
ing  black  chemise  of  frail  chiffon  and  lace  was  a  hussy  at 
which  the  deep-bosomed  bed  stiffened  in  disgust,  and  she 
hurled  it  into  a  bureau  drawer,  hid  it  beneath  a  sensible  linen 
blouse. 

She  gave  up  unpacking.  She  went  to  the  window,  with  a 
purely  literary  thought  of  village  charm — hollyhocks  and  lanes 
and  apple-cheeked  cottagers.  What  she  saw  was  the  side  of 
the  Seventh-Day  Adventist  Church — a  plain  clapboard  wall 
of  a  sour  liver  color;  the  ash-pile  back  of  the  church;  an 
unpainted  stable;  and  an  alley  in  which  a  Ford  delivery- wagon 
had  been  stranded.  This  was  the  terraced  garden  below  her 
boudoir;  this  was  to  be  her  scenery  for 

"  I  mustn't!  I  mustn't!  I'm  nervous  this  afternoon.  Am 
I  sick?  .  .  .  Good  Lord,  I  hope  it  isn't  that!  Not  now! 
How  people  lie!  How  these  stories  lie!  They  say  the  bride 
is  always  so  blushing  and  proud  and  happy  when  she  finds  that 
out,  but — I'd  hate  it!  I'd  be  scared  to  death!  Some  day 

but Please,  dear  nebulous  Lord,  not  now!  Bearded  sniffy 

old  men  sitting  and  demanding  that  we  bear  children.  If 

they  had  to  bear  them !  I  wish  they  did  have  to!  Not 

now!  Not  till  I've  got  hold  of  this  job  of  liking  the  ash-pile  out 
there!  ...  I  must  shut  up.  I'm  mildly  insane.  I'm 
going  out  for  a  walk.  I'll  see  the  town  by  myself.  My  first 
view  of  the  empire  I'm  going  to  conquer!  " 

She  fled  from  the  house. 

She  stared  with  seriousness  at  every  concrete  crossing,  eveiy 
hitching-post,  every  rake  for  leaves;  and  to  each  house  she 
devoted  all  her  speculation.  What  would  they  come  to  mear,? 
Hott  would  they  look  six  months  from  now?  In  which  ri 
them  would  she  be  dining?  Which  of  these  people  whom  si'.e 
passed,  now  mere  arrangements  of  hair  and  clothes,  would  tui  n 
into  intimates,  loved  or  dreaded,  different  from  all  the  ottu - 
people  in  the  world? 

As  she  came  into  the  small  business-section  she  inspectc  ' 
a  broad-beamed  grocer  in  an  alpaca  coat  who  was  bending  ove; 
the  apples  and  celery  on  a  slanted  platform  in  front  of  hi\{ 
Store.  Would  she  ever  talk  to  him?  What  would  he  say  it 


MAIN   STREET  33 

she  stopped  and  stated,  "  I  am  Mrs.  Kennicott.  Some 
day  I  hope  to  confide  that  a  heap  of  extremely  dubious  pump 
kins  as  a  window-display  doesn't  exhilarate  me  much." 

(The  grocer  was  Mr.  Frederick  F.  Ludelmeyer,  whose  market 
is  at  the  corner  of  Main  Street  and  Lincoln  Avenue.  In 
supposing  that  only  she  was  observant  Carol  was  ignorant, 
misled  by  the  indifference  of  cities.  She  fancied  that  she  was 
slipping  through  the  streets  invisible;  but  when  she  had 
passed,  Mr.  Ludelmeyer  puffed  into  the  store  and  couched  at  \ 
his  clerk,  "  I  seen  a  young  woman,  she  come  along  the  side  \ 
street.  I  bet  she  iss  Doc  Kennicott's  new  bride,  good-looker, 
nice  legs,  but  she  wore  a  hell  of  a  plain  suit,  no  style,  I  wonder 
will  she  pay  cash,  I  bet  she  goes  to  Rowland  &  Gould's  more 
as  she  does  here,  what  you  done  with  the  poster  for  Fluffed 
Oats?  ") 


n 

When  Carol  had  walked  for  thirty-two  minutes  she  had  com 
pletely  covered  the  town,  east  and  west,  north  and  south;  and 
>  she  stood  at  the  corner  of  Main  Street  and  Washington  Avenue 
and  despaired. 

Main  Street  with  its  two-story  brick  shops,  its  story-and-a- 
half  wooden  residences,  its  muddy  expanse  from  concrete  walk 
to  walk,  its  huddle  of  Fords  and  lumber-wagons,  was  too 
small  to  absorb  her.  The  broad,  straight,  unenticing  gashes 
of  the  streets  let  in  the  grasping  prairie  on  every  side.  She 
realized  the  vastness  and  the  emptiness  of  the  land.  The 
skeleton  iron  windmill  on  the  farm  a  few  blocks  away,  at  the 
north  end  of  Main  Street,  was  like  the  ribs  of  a  dead  cow. 
She  thought  of  the  coming  of  the  Northern  winter,  when  the 
unprotected  houses  would  crouch  together  in  terror  of  storms 
galloping  out  of  that  wild  waste.  They  were  so  small  and 
weak,  the  little  brown  houses.  They  were  shelters  for  spar 
rows,  not  homes  for  warm  laughing  people. 

She  told  herself  that  down  the  street  the  leaves  were  a 
splendor.  The  maples  were  orange;  the  oaks  a  solid  tint 
9f  —'-pbeny.  And  the  lawns  had  been  nursed  with  love.  But 
the  thought  would  not  hold.  At  best  the  trees  resembled  a 
thinned  woodlot.  There  was  no  park  to  rest  the  eyes.  And 
since  not  Gopher  Prairie  but  Wakamin  was  the  county-seat, 
there  was  ao  court-house  with  its  grounds. 


34  MAIN    STREET 

She  glanced  through  the  fly-specked  windows  of  the  most 

pretentious  building  in  sight,  the  one  place  which  welcomed 

strangers   and  determined  their  opinion  of   the  charm  and 

i    luxury  of  Gopher  Prairie — the  Minniemashie  House.    It  was 

I    a  tall  lean  shabby  structure,  three  stories  of  yellow-streaked 

/    wood,  the  corners  covered  with  sanded  pine  slabs  purporting 

I     to  symbolize  stone.    In  the  hotel  office  she  could  see  a  stretch 

I    of  bare   unclean  floor,  a  line  of  rickety  chairs  with  brass 

\  cuspidors    between,    a   writing-desk   with   advertisements    in 

mother-of-pearl  letters  upon  the  glass-covered  back.     The 

dining-room  beyond  was  a  jungle  of  stained  table-cloths  and 

catsup  bottles. 

She  looked  no  more  at  the  Minniemashie  House. 

A  man  in  cuffless  shirt-sleeves  with  pink  arm-garters,  wearing 
a  linen  collar  but  no  tie,  yawned  his  way  from  Dyer's  Drug 
Store  across  to  the  hotel.  He  leaned  against  the  wall,  scratched 
a  while,  sighed,  and  in  a  bored  way  gossiped  with  a  man  tilted 
back  in  a  chair.  A  lumber-wagon,  its  long  green  box  filled 
with  large  spools  of  barbed-wire  fencing,  creaked  down  the 
block.  A  Ford,  in  reverse,  sounded  as  though  it  were  shaking 
to  pieces,  then  recovered  and  rattled  away.  In  the  Greek 
candy-store  was  the  whine  of  a  peanut-roaster,  and  the  oily 
smell  of  nuts. 

There  was  no  other  sound  nor  sign  of  life. 

She  wanted  to  run,  fleeing  from  the  encroaching  prairie^ 
demanding  the  security  of  a  great  city.  Her  dreams  of  creating 
a  beautiful  town  were  ludicrous.  Oozing  out  from  every 
drab  wall,  she  felt  a  forbidding  spirit  which  she  could  never 
conquer. 

She  trailed  down  the  street  on  one  side,  back  on  the  other, 
glancing  into  the  cross  streets.  It  was  a  private  Seeing  Main 
Street  tour.  She  was  within  ten  minutes  beholding  not  only 
the  heart  of  a  place  called  Gopher  Prairie,  but  ten  thousand 
towns  from  Albany  to  San  Diego: 

Dyer's  Drug  Store,  a  corner  building  of  regular  and  unreal 
blocks  of  artificial  stone.  Inside  the  store,  a  greasy  marble 
soda-fountain  with  an  electric  lamp  of  red  and  green  and 
curdled-yellow  mosaic  shade.  Pawed-over  heaps  of  tooth 
brushes  and  combs  and  packages  of  shaving-soap.  Shelves 
of  soap-cartons,  teething-rings,  garden-seeds,  and  patent  ;nedi- 
cines  in  yellow  packages — nostrums  for  consumption.  *'-t 
"women's  diseases" — notorious  mixtures  of  opium  and  \Iw 


MAIN    STREET  35 

hoi,  in  the  very  shop  to  which  her  husband  sent  patients  for 
the  filling  of  prescriptions. 

From  a  second-story  window  the  sign  "W.  P.  Kennicott, 
Phys.  &  Surgeon,"  gilt  on  black  sand. 

A  small  wooden  motion-picture  theater  called  "  The  Rose 
bud  Movie  Palace."  Lithographs  announcing  a  film  called 
"  Fatty  in  Love." 

Rowland  &  Gould's  Grocery.  In  the  display  window,  black, 
overripe  bananas  and  lettuce  on  which  a  cat  was  sleeping. 
Shelves  lined  with  red  crepe  paper  which  was  now  faded  and 
torn  and  concentrically  spotted.  Flat  against  the  wall  of  the 
second  story  "the  signs  of  lodges — the  Knights  of  Pythias, 
the  Maccabees,  the  Woodmen,  the  Masons. 

Dahl  &  Oleson's  Meat  Market — a  reek  of  blood. 

A  jewelry  shop  with  tinny-looking  wrist-watches  for  women. 
In  front  of  it,  at  the  curb,  a  huge  wooden  clock  which  did  not 

go- 

A  fly-buzzing  saloon  with  a  brilliant  gold  and  enamel  whisky 
sign  across  the  front.  Other  saloons  down  the  block.  From 
them  a  stink  of  stale  beer,  and  thick  voices  bellowing  pidgin 
German  or  trolling  out  dirty  songs — vice  gone  feeble  and  un 
enterprising  and  dull — the  delicacy  of  a  mining-camp  minus  its 
vigor.  In  front  of  the  saloons,  farmwives  sitting  on  the  seats  of 
wagons,  waiting  for  their  husbands  to  become  drunk  and  ready 
to  start  home. 

A  tobacco  shop  called  "  The  Smoke  House,"  filled  with  young 
men  shaking  dice  for  cigarettes.  Racks  of  magazines,  and  pic 
tures  of  coy  fat  prostitutes  in  striped  bathing-suits. 

A  clothing  store  with  a  display  of  "  ox-blood-shade  Oxfords 
with  bull-dog  toes."  Suits  which  looked  worn  and  glossless 
while  they  were  still  new,  flabbily  draped  on  dummies  like 
corpses  with  painted  cheeks. 

The  Bon  Ton  Store — Haydock  &  Simons' — the  largest  shop 
In  town.  The  first-story  front  of  clear  glass,  the  plates  cleverly 
bound  at  the  edges  with  brass.  The  second  story  of  pleasant 
tapestry  brick.  One  window  of  excellent  clothes  for  men,  in 
terspersed  with  collars  of  floral  pique  which  showed  mauve 
daisies  on  a  saffron  ground.  Newness  and  an  obvious  notion 
of  neatness  and  service.  Haydock  &  Simons.  Haydock.  She 
had  met  a  Haydock  at  the  station;  Harry  Haydock;  an  active 
person  of  thirty-five.  He  seemed  great  to  her,  now,  and  very 
like  a  saint.  His  shop  was  clean! 


36  MAIN   STREET 

Axel  Egge's  General  Store,  frequented  by  Scandinavian 
farmers.  In  the  shallow  dark 'Window-space  heaps  of  sleazy' 
sateens,  badly  woven  galateas,  canvas  shoes  designed  for 
women  with  bulging  ankles,  steel  and  red  glass  buttons  upon 
cards  with  broken  edges,  a  cottony  blanket,  a  granite-ware 
frying-pan  reposing  on  a  sun-faded. yepe  blouse. 

Sam  Clark's  Hardware  Store.  An  air  of  frankly  metallic 
enterprise.  Guns  and  churns  and  barrels  of  nails  and  beautiful 
shiny  butcher  knives. 

Chester  Dashaway's  House  Furnishing  Emporium.  A  vista 
of  heavy  oak  rockers  with  leather  seats,  asleep  in  a  dismal 
row. 

Billy's  Lunch.  Thick  handleless  cups  on  the  wet  oilcloth- 
covered  counter.  An  odor  of  onions  and  the  smoke  of  hot 
lard.  In  the  doorway  a  young  man  audibly  sucking  a  tooth 
pick. 

The  warehouse  of  the  buyer  of  cream  and  potatoes.  The 
sour  smell  of  a  dairy. 

The  Ford  Garage  and  the  Buick  Garage,  competent  one- 
story  brick  and  cement  buildings  opposite  each  other.  Old 
and  new  cars  on  grease-blackened  concrete  floors.  Tire  ad 
vertisements.  The  roaring  of  a  tested  motor;  a  racket  which 
beat  at  the  nerves.  Surly  young  men  in  khaki  union-over 
alls.  The  most  energetic  and  vital  places  in  town. 

A  large  warehouse  for  agricultural  implements.  An  impres 
sive  barricade  of  green  and  gold  wheels,  of  shafts  and  sulky 
seats,  belonging  to  machinery  of  which  Carol  knew  nothing — 
potato-planters,  manure-spreaders,  silage-cutters,  disk-harrows, 
breaking-plows. 

A  feed  store,  its  windows  opaque  with  the  dust  of  bran,  a 
patent  medicine  advertisement  painted  on  its  roof. 

Ye  Art  Shoppe,  Prop.  Mrs.  Mary  Ellen  Wilks,  Christian 
Science  Library  open  daily  free.  A  touching  fumble  at  beauty. 
A  one-room  shanty  of  boards  recently  covered  with  rough 
stucco.  A  show-window  delicately  rich  in  error:  vases  starting 
out  to  imitate  tree-trunks  but  running  off  into  blobs  of  gilt— 
an  aluminum  ash-tray  labeled  "  Greetings  from  Gopher  Prai 
rie  " — a  Christian  Science  magazine — a  stamped  sofa-cushion 
portraying  a  large  ribbon  tied  to  a  small  poppy,  the  correct 
skeins  of  embroidery-silk  lying  on  the  pillow.  Inside  the  shop, 
a  glirapse  of  bad  carbon  prints  of  bad  and  famous  pictuies, 
shelves  of  phonograph  records  and  camera  films,  wooden  toys, 


MAIN   STREET  37 

and  in  the  midst  an  anxious  small  woman  sitting  in  a  padded 
rocking  chair. 

A  barber  shop  and  pool  room.  A  man  in  shirt  sleeves, 
presumably  Del  Snafflin  the  proprietor,  shaving  a  man  who  had 
a  large  Adam's  apple. 

Nat  Hicks's'  Tailor  Shop,  on  a  side  street  off  Main.  A  one- 
story  building.  A  fashion-plate  showing  human  pitchforks 
in  garments  which  looked  as  hard  as  steel  plate. 

On  another  side  street  a  raw  red-brick  Catholic  Church  with 
a  varnished  yellow  door. 

The  post-office — merely  a  partition  of  glass  and  brass  shut 
ting  off  the  rear  of  a  mildewed  room  which  must  once  have 
been  a  shop.  A  tilted  writing-shelf  against  a  wall  rubbed  black 
and  scattered  with  official  notices  and  army  recruiting-posters. 

The  damp,  yellow-brick  schoolbuilding  in  its  cindery  grounds.  *\ 

The  State  Bank,  stucco  masking  wood. 

The  Farmers*  National  Bank.  An  Ionic  temple  of  marble. 
Pure,  exquisite,  solitary.  A  brass  plate  with  "  Ezra  Stowbody, 
Pres't." 

A  score  of  similar  shops  and  establishments. 

Behind  them  and  mixed  with  them,  the  houses,  meek  cottages 
or  large,  comfortable,  soundly  uninteresting  symbols  of  pros 
perity. 

In  all  the  town  not  one  building  save  the  Ionic  bank  which 
gave  pleasure  to  Carol's  eyes ;  not  a  dozen  buildings  which  sug 
gested  that,  in  the  fifty  years  of  Gopher  Prairie's  existence,  the 
citizens  had  realized  that  it  was  either  desirable  or  possible  to 
make  this,  their  common  home,  amusing  or  attractive. 

It  was  not  only  the  unsparing  unapologetic  ugliness  and  the 
rigid  straightness  which  overwhelmed  her.  It  was  the  plan-\ 
lessness,  the  flimsy  temporariness  of  the  buildings,  their  faded  \ 
unpleasant  colors.  The  street  was  cluttered  with  electric* 
light  poles,  telephone  poles,  gasoline  pumps  for  motor  cars^ 
boxes  of  goods.  Each  man  had  built  with  the  most  -valiant 
disregard  of  all  the  others.  Between  a  large  new  "  block  "  of 
two-story  brick  shops  on  one  side,  and  the  fire-brick  Overland 
garage  on  the  other  side,  was  a  one-story  cottage  turned  into 
a  millinery  shop.  The  white  temple  of  the  Farmers'  Bank 
was  elbowed  back  by  a  grocery  of  glaring  yellow  brick.  One 
store-building  had  a  patchy  galvanized  iron  cornice;  the  build 
ing  beside  it  was  crowned  with  battlements  and  pyramids  of 
brick  capped  with  blocks  of  red  sandstone. 


38  MAIN   STREET 

She  escaped  from  Main  Street,  fled  home. 

She  wouldn't  have  cared,  she  insisted,  if  the  people  had 
been  comely.  She  had  noted  a  young  man  loafing  before  a 
shop,  one  unwashed  hand  holding  the  cord  of  an  awning;  a 
middle-aged  man  who  had  a  way  of  staring  at  women  as 
though  he  had  been  married  too  long  and  too  prosaically;  an 
old  farmer,  solid,  wholesome,  but  not  clean — his  face  like  a 
potato  fresh  from  the  earth.  None  of  them  had  shaved  for  three 
days. 

"  If  they  can't  build  shrines,  out  here  on  the  prairie,  surely 
there's  nothing  to  prevent  their  buying  safety-razors!  "  she 
raged. 

She  fought  herself:  "  I  must  be  wrong.  People  do  live  here. 
It  can't  be  as  ugly  as— as  I  know  it  is!  I  must  be  wrcng. 
But  I  can't  do  it.  I  can't  go  through  with  it." 

She  came  home  too  seriously  worried  for  hysteria ;  and  when 
she  found  Kennicott  waiting  for  her,  and  exulting,  "  Have  a 
walk?  Well,  like  the  town?  Great  lawns  and  trees,  eh?  " 
she  was  able  to  say,  with  a  self-protective  maturity  new  to 
her,  "It's  very  interesting." 


in 

The  train  which  brought  Carol  to  Gopher  Prairie  plso 
brought  Miss  Bea  Sorenson. 

Miss  Bea  was  a  stalwart,  corn-colored,  laughing  young 
woman,  and  she  was  bored  by  farm-work.  She  desired  the 
excitements  of  city-life,  and  the  way  to  enjoy  city-Ire  was, 
she  had  decided,  to  "  go  get  a  yob  as  hired  girl  in  Gcoher 
Prairie."  She  contentedly  lugged  her  pasteboard  telescope  from 
the  station  to  her  cousin,  Tina  Malmquist,  maid  of  s!l  work 
in  the  residence  of  Mrs.  Luke  Dawson. 

"  Veil,  so  you  come  to  town,"  said  Tina. 

"Ya.    Ay  get  a  yob,"  said  Bea. 

"Veil.  ...    You  got  a  fella  now?  " 

"Ya.     Yim  Yacobson." 

"  Veil.    I'm  glat  to  see  you.    How  much  you  vant  a  veek?  " 

"  Sex  dollar." 

"There  ain't  nobody  pay  dat.  Vait!  Dr.  Kennicott,  1 
t'ink  he  marry  a  girl  from  de  Cities.  Maybe  she  pay  dat 
Veil.  You  go  take  a  valk." 

"  Ya."  said  Bea. 


MAIN   STREET  39 

So  it  chanced  that  Carol  Kennicott  and  Bea  Sorenson  were 
viewing  Main  Street  at  the  same  time. 

Bea  had  never  before  been  in  a  town  larger  than  Scandia 
Crossing,  which  has  sixty-seven  inhabitants. 

As  she  marched  up  the  street  she  was  meditating  that  it 
didn't  hardly  seem  like  it  was  possible  there  could  be  so 
many  folks  all  in  one  place  at  the  same  time.  My!  It 
would  take  years  to  get  acquainted  with  them  all.  And  swell 
people,  too!  A  fine  big  gentleman  in  a  new  pink  shirt  with 
a  diamond,  and  not  no  washed-out  blue  denim  working-shirt. 
A  lovely  lady  in  a  longery  dress  (but  it  must  be  an  awful  hard 
dress  to  wash).  And  the  stores! 

Not  just  three  of  them,  like  there  were  at  Scandia  Crossing, 
but  more  than  four  whole  blocks! 

The  Bon  Ton  Store — big  as  four  barns — my!  it  would 
simply  scare  a  person  to  go  in  there,  with  seven  or  eight 
clerks  all  looking  at  you.  And  the  men's  suits,  on  figures  just 
like  human.  And  Axel  Egge's,  like  home,  lots  of  Swedes  and 
Norskes  in  there,  and  a  card  of  dandy  buttons,  like  rubies. 

A  drug  store  with  a  soda  fountain  that  was  just  huge,  awful 
long,  and  all  lovely  marble;  and  on  it  there  was  a  great  big 
lamp  with  the  biggest  shade  you  ever  saw — all  different  kinds 
colored  glass  stuck  together;  and  the  soda  spouts,  they  were 
silver,  and  they  came  right  out  of  the  bottom  of  the  lamp- 
stand!  Behind  the  fountain  there  were  glass  shelves,  and 
bottles  of  new  kinds  of  soft  drinks,  that  nobody  ever  heard 
of.  Suppose  a  fella  took  you  there! 

A  hotel,  awful  high,  higher  than  Oscar  Tollefson's  new  red 
barn;  three  stories,  one  right  on  top  of  another;  you  had  to 
stick  your  head  back  to  look  clear  up  to  the  top.  There  was 
a  swell  traveling  man  in  there — probably  been  to  Chicago,  lots 
of  times. 

Oh,  the  dandiest  people  to  know  here!  There  was  a  lady 
going  by,  you  wouldn't  hardly  say  she  was  any  older  than  Bea 
herself;  she  wore  a  dandy  new  gray  suit  and  black  pumps. 
She  almost  looked  like  she  was  looking  over  the  town,  too. 
But  you  couldn't  tell  what  she  thought.  Bea  would  like  to 
be  that  way — kind  of  quiet,  so  nobody  would  get  fresh.  Kind 
of — oh,  elegant. 

A  Lutheran  Church.  Here  in  the  city  there'd  be  lovely 
sermons,  and  church  twice  on  Sunday,  every  Sunday! 

And  a  movie  show  I 


40  MAIN   STREET 

A  regular  theater,  just  for  movies.  With  the  sign  "  Change 
of  bill  every  evening."  Pictures  every  evening! 

There  were  movies  in  Scandia  Crossing,  but  only  once  every 
two  weeks,  and  it  took  the  Sorensons  an  hour  to  drive  in — 
papa  was  such  a  tightwad  he  wouldn't  get  a  Ford.  But  here 
she  could  put  on  her  hat  any  evening,  and  in  three  minutes' 
walk  be  to  the  movies,  and  see  lovely  fellows  in  dress-suits 
and  Bill  Hart  and  everything! 

How  could  they  have  so  many  stores?  Why!  There  was 
one  just  for  tobacco  alone,  and  one  (a  lovely  one — the  Art 
Shoppy  it  was)  for  pictures  and  vases  and  stuff,  with  oh,  the 
dandiest  vase  made  so  it  looked  just  like  a  tree  trunk! 

Bea  stood  on  the  corner  of  Main  Street  and  Washington 
Avenue.  The  roar  of  the  city  began  to  frighten  her.  There 
were  five  automobuls  on  the  street  all  at  the  same  time — and 
one  of  'em  was  a  great  big  car  that  must  of  cost  two  thousand 
dollars — and  the  'bus  was  starting  for  a  train  with  five  elegant- 
dressed  fellows,  and  a  man  was  pasting  up  red  bills  with  lovely 
pictures  of  washing-machines  on  them,  and  the  jeweler  was 
laying  out  bracelets  and  wrist-watches  and  everything  on  real 
velvet. 

What  did  she  care  if  she  got  six  dollars  a  week?  Or  two! 
It  was  worth  while  working  for  nothing,  to  be  allowed  to  stay 
here.  And  think  how  it  would  be  in  the  evening,  all  lighted 
up — and  not  with  no  lamps,  but  with  electrics!  And  maybe  a 
gentleman  friend  taking  you  to  the  movies  and  buying  you  a 
strawberry  ice  cream  soda! 

Bea  trudged  back. 

"  Veil?    You  lak  it?  "  said  Tina. 

"  Ya.    Ay  lak  it.    Ay  t'ink  maybe  Ay  stay  here."  said  Bea. 


IV 

Ths  ?ecently  built  fcGuse  of  Sam  Clare,  in  wmcn  was  gives 
*he  party  to  welcome  Carol,  was  one  of  the  largest  in  Gopher 
Prairie.  It  had  a  clean  sweep  of  clapboards,  a  solid  squareness, 
a  small  tower,  and  a  large  screened  porch.  Inside,  it  was  as 
shiny,  as  hard,  and  as  cheerful  as  a  new  oak  upright  piano. 

Carol  looked  imploringly  at  Sam  Clark  as  he  rolled  to  the 
door  and  shouted,  "Welcome,  little  lady!  The  keys  of  the 
city  are  yourn!  " 

Beyond  him,  in  the  hallway  and  the  living-room,  sitting  in 


MAIN    STREET  41 

a  vast  prim  circle  as  though  they  were  attending  a  funeral, 
she  saw  the  guests.  They  were  waiting  so!  They  were  wait 
ing  for  her!  The  determination  to  be  all  one  pretty  flowerlet 
of  appreciation  leaked  away.  She  begged  of  Sam,  "  I  don't 
dare  face  them!  They  expect  so  much.  They'll  swallow  me 
in  one  mouthful — glump! — like  that!  " 

"  Why,  sister,  they're  going  to  love  you — same  as  I  would 
if  I  didn't  think  the  doc  here  would  beat  me  up!  " 

"  B-but I  don't  dare!  Faces  to  the  right  of  me,  faces 

in  front  of  me,  volley  and  wonder!  " 

She  sounded  hysterical  to  herself;  she  fancied  that  to  Sam 
Clark  she  sounded  insane.  But  he  chuckled,  "  Now  you  just 
cuddle  under  Sam's  wing,  and  if  anybody  rubbers  at  you  too 
long,  I'll  shoo  'em  off.  Here  we  go!  Watch  my  smoke — 
Sam'l,  the  ladies'  delight  and  the  bridegrooms'  terror!  " 

His  arm  about  her,  he  led  her  in  and  bawled,  "  Ladies  and 
worser  halves,  the  bride!  We  won't  introduce  her  round  yet, 
because  she'll  never  get  your  bum  names  straight  anyway. 
Now  bust  up  this  star-chamber!  " 

They  tittered  politely,  but  they  did  not  move  from  the  social 
security  of  their  circle,  and  they  did  not  cease  staring. 

Carol  had  given  creative  energy  to  dressing  for  the  event. 
Her  hair  was  demure,  low  on  her  forehead  with  a  parting  and 
a  coiled  braid.  Now  she  wished  that  she  had  piled  it  high. 
Her  frock  was  an  ingenue  slip  of  lawn,  with  a  wide  gold  sash 
and  a  low  square  neck,  which  gave  a  suggestion  of  throat  and 
molded  shoulders.  But  as  they  looked  her  over  she  was 
certain  that  it  was  all  wrong.  She  wished  alternately  that  she 
had  worn  a  spinsterish  high-necked  dress,  and  that  she  had 
dared  to  shock  them  with  a  violent  brick-red  scarf  which  she 
had  bought  in  Chicago. 

She  was  led  about  the  circle.  Her  voice  mechanically  pro 
duced  safe  remarks: 

"  Oh,  I'm  sure  I'm  going  to  like  it  here  ever  so  much,"  and 
"  Yes,  we  did  have  the  best  time  in  Colorado — mountains," 
and  "  Yes,  I  lived  in  St.  Paul  several  years.  Euclid  P.  Tinker? 
No,  I  don't  remember  meeting  him,  but  I'm  pretty  sure  I've 
heard  of  him." 

Kennicott  took  her  aside  and  whispered,  "Now  I'll  intro 
duce  you  to  them,  one  at  a  time." 

"  Tell  me  about  them  first." 

"Well,  the  nice-looking  couple  over  there  are  Harry  Hay* 


42  MAINSTREET 

dock  and  his  wife,  Juanita.  Harry's  dad  owns  most  of  the 
Bon  Ton,  but  it's  Harry  who  runs  it  and  gives  it  the  pep. 
He's  a  hustler.  Next  to  him  is  Dave  Dyer  the  druggist — you 
met  him  this  afternoon — mighty  good  duck-shot.  The  tall 
husk  beyond  him  is  Jack  Elder — Jackson  Elder — owns  the 
planing-mill,  and  the  Minniemashie  House,  and  quite  a  share 
in  the  Farmers'  National  Bank.  Him  and  his  wife  are  good 
sports — him  and  Sam  and  I  go  hunting  together  a  lot.  The 
old  cheese  there  is  Luke  Dawson,  the  richest  man  in  town. 
Next  to  him  is  Nat  Hicks,  the  tailor." 

"Really?    A  tailor?  " 

"  Sure.  Why  not?  Maybe  we're  slow,  but  we  are  democra 
tic.  I  go  hunting  with  Nat  same  as  I  do  with  Jack  Elder." 

"  I'm  glad.  I've  never  met  a  tailor  socially.  It  must  be 
charming  to  meet  one  and  not  have  to  think  about  what  you 

owe  him.  And  do  you Would  you  go  hunting  with  your 

barber,  too?  " 

"  No  but No  use  running  this  democracy  thing  into  the 

ground.  Besides,  I've  known  Nat  for  years,  and  besides,  he's 

a  mighty  good  shot  and That's  the  way  it  is,  see?  Next 

/  to  Nat  is  Chet  Dashaway.  Great  fellow  for  chinning.  He'll 
i  talk  your  arm  off,  about  religion  or  politics  or  books  or  any- 
V  thing." 

Carol  gazed  with  a  polite  approximation  to  interest  at 
Mr.  Dashaway,  a  tan  person  with  a  wide  mouth.  "Oh,  I 
know!  He's  tiie  furniture-store  man!  "  She  was  much  pleased 
with  herself. 

"  Yump,  and  he's  the  undertaker.  You'll  like  him.  Come 
shake  hands  with  him." 

"Oh  no,  no!  He  doesn't — he  doesn't  do  the  embalming 
and  all  that — himself?  I  couldn't  shake  hands  with  an  under 
taker!  " 

"  Why  not?  You'd  be  proud  to  shake  hands  with  a  great 
surgeon,  just  after  he'd  been  carving  up  people's  bellies." 

She  sought  to  regain  her  afternoon's  calm  of  maturity. 
"  Yes.  You're  right.  I  want — oh,  my  dear,  do  you  know  how 
much  I  want  to  like  the  people  you  like?  I  want  to  see  people 
as  they  are." 

"Well,  don't  forget  to  see  people  as  other  folks  see  them 
as  they  are!  They  have  the  stuff,  Did  you  know  that  Percy 
Bresnahan  came  from  here?  Born  and  brought  up  herei  " 

"  Bresnahan?  " 


MAIN    STREET  43 

«  yes — you  know — president  of  the  Velvet  Motor  Company 
of  Boston,  Mass. — make  the  Velvet  Twelve — biggest  automo 
bile  factory  in  New  England." 

"  I  think  I've  heard  of  him." 

"  Sure  you  have.  Why,  he's  a  millionaire  several  times  over! 
Well,  Perce  comes  back  here  for  the  black-bass  fishing  almost 
every  summer,  and  lie  says  if  he  could  get  away  from  business, 
he'd  rather  live  here  than  in  Boston  or  New  York  or  any  of 
those  places.  He  doesn't  mind  Chefs  undertaking." 

"  Please!  I'll— I'll  like  everybody  I  I'll  be  the  community 
sunbeam!  " 

He  led  her  to  the  Dawsons. 

Luke  Dawson,  lender  of  money  on  mortgages,  owner  of 
Northern  cut-over  land,  was  a  hesitant  man  in  unpressed 
soft  gray  clothes,  with  bulging  eyes  in  a  milky  face.  His  wife 
had  bleached  cheeks,  bleached  hair,  bleached  voice,  and  a 
bleached  manner.  She  wore  her  expensive  green  frock,  with 
its  passementeried  bosom,  bead  tassels,  and  gaps  between  the 
buttons  down  the  back,  as  though  she  had  bought  it  second 
hand  and  was  afraid  of  meeting  the  former  owner.  They  were 
shy.  It  was  "  Professor  "  George  Edwin  Mott,  superinten 
dent  of  schools,  a  Chinese  mandarin  turned  brown,  who  held 
Carol's  hand  and  made  her  welcome. 

When  the  Dawsons  and  Mr.  Mott  had  stated  that  they  were 
"  pleased  to  meet  her,"  there  seemed  to  be  nothing  else  to  say, 
but  the  conversation  went  on  automatically. 

"  Do  you  like  Gopher  Prairie?  "  whimpered  Mrs,  Dawson. 

"  Oh,  I'm  sure  I'm  going  to  be  ever  so  happy." 

"  There's  so  many  nice  people."  Mrs.  Dawson  looked  to 
Mr.  Mott  for  social  and  intellectual  aid.  He  lectured:  •> 

"  There's  a  fine  class  of  people.    I  don't  like  some  of  these  \ 
retired  farmers  who  come  here  to  spend  their  last  days —    | 
especially  the  Germans.    They  hate  to  pay  school-taxes.    They     j 
hate  to  spend  a  cent.    But  the  rest  are  a  fine  class  of  people. 
Did  you  know  that  Percy  Bresnahan  came  from  here?    Used    / 
to  go  to  school  right  at  the  old  building!  " 

"  I  heard  he  did." 

"  Yes.  He's  a  prince.  He  and  I  went  fishing  together,  last 
time  he  was  here." 

The  Dawsons  and  Mr.  Mott  teetered  upon  weary  feet,  and 
smiled  at  Carol  with  crystallized  expressions.  She  went  on: 

"  Tell  me,  Mr.  Mott:    Have  you  ever  tried  any  experiments 


44  MAIN    STREET 

with  any  of  the  new  educational  systems?  The  modern  kinder 
garten  methods  or  the  Gary  system?  " 

"  Oh.  Those.  Most  of  these  would-be  reformers  are  simply 
notoriety-seekers.  I  believe  in  manual  training,  but  Latin  and 
mathematics  always  will  be  the  backbone  of  sound  American 
ism,  no  matter  what  these  faddists  advocate — heaven  knows 
what  they  do  want — knitting,  I  suppose,  and  classes  in  wig- 
\  gling  the  ears!  " 

The  Dawsons  smiled  their  appreciation  of  listening  to  a 
savant.  Carol  waited  till  Kennicott  should  rescue  her.  The 
rest  of  the  party  waited  for  the  miracle  of  being  amused. 

Harry  and  Juanita  Haydock,  Rita  Simons  and  Dr.  Terry 
Gould — the  young  smart  set  of  Gopher  Prairie.  She  was  led 
to  them.  Juanita  Haydock  flung  at  her  in  a  high,  cackling, 
friendly  voice: 

"  Well,  this  is  so  nice  to  have  you  here.  We'll  have  some 
good  parties— dances  and  everything.  You'll  have  to  join  the 
Jolly  Seventeen.  We  play  bridge  and  we  have  a  supper  once 
a  month.  You  play,  of  course?  " 

"N-no,  I  don't." 

"Really?    In  St.  Paul?  " 

"  I've  always  been  such  a  book-worm." 

"  We'll  have  to  teach  you.  Bridge  is  half  the  fun  of  life." 
Juanita  had  become  patronizing,  and  she  glanced  disrespect 
fully  at  Carol's  golden  sash,  which  she  had  previously  admired. 

Harry  Haydock  said  politely,  "  How  do  you  think  you're 
going  to  like  the  old  burg?  " 

"  I'm  sure  I  shall  like  it  tremendously." 

"  Best  people  on  earth  here.  Great  hustlers,  too.  Course 
I've  had  lots  of  chances  to  go  live  in  Minneapolis,  but  we 
like  it  here.  Real  he-town.  Did  you  know  that  Percy  Bresna- 
han  came  from  here?  " 

Carol  perceived  that  she  had  been  weakened  in  the  biological 
struggle  by  disclosing  her  lack  of  bridge.  Roused  to  nervous 
desire  to  regain  her  position  she  turned  on  Dr.  Terry  Gould, 
the  young  and  pool-playing  competitor  of  her  husband.  Her 
eyes  coquetted  with  him  while  she  gushed: 

"  I'll  learn  bridge.  But  what  I  really  love  most  is  the  out 
doors.  Can't  we  all  get  up  a  boating  party,  and  fish,  or 
whatever  you  do,  and  have  a  picnic  supper  afterwards?  " 

"  Now  you're  talking!  "  Dr.  Gould  affirmed.  He  looked 
father  too  obviously  at  the  cream-smooth  slope  of  her  shoulder. 


MAIN   STREET  45 

"Like  fishing?  Fishing  is  my  middle  name.  I'll  teach  you 
bridge.  Like  cards  at  all?  " 

"  I  used  to  be  rather  good  at  bezique." 

She  knew  that  bezique  was  a  game  of  cards — or  a  game  of 
something  else.  Roulette,  possibly.  But  her  lie  was  a  triumph. 
Juanita's  handsome,  high-colored,  horsey  face  showed  doubt. 
Harry  stroked  his  nose  and  said  humbly,  "  Bezique?  Used 
to  be  great  gambling  game,  wasn't  it?  " 

While  others  drifted  to  her  group,  Carol  snatched  up  the 
conversation.  She  laughed  and  was  frivolous  and  rather  brittle. 
She  could  not  distinguish  their  eyes.  They  were  a  blurry 
theater-audience  before  which  she  self-consciously  enacted  the 
comedy  of  being  the  Clever  Little  Bride  of  Doc  Kennicott: 

"  These-here  celebrated  Open  Spaces,  that's  what  I'm  going 
out  for.  I'll  never  read  anything  but  the  sporting-page  again. 
Will  converted  me  on  our  Colorado  trip.  There  were  so 
many  mousey  tourists  who  were  afraid  to  get  out  of  the  motor 
'bus  that  I  decided  to  be  Annie  Oakley,  the  Wild  Western 
Wampire,  and  I  bought  oh!  a  vociferous  skirt  which  revealed 
my  perfectly  nice  ankles  to  the  Presbyterian  glare  of  all  the 
loway  schoolma'ams,  and  I  leaped  from  peak  to  peak  like  the 

nimble  chamoys,  and You  may  think  that  Herr  Doctor 

Kennicott  is  a  Nimrod,  but  you  ought  to  have  seen  me  daring 
him  to  strip  to  his  B.  V.  D.'s  and  go  swimming  in  an  icy 
mountain  brook." 

She  knew  that  they  were  thinking  of  becoming  shocked,  but 
Juanita  Haydock  was  admiring,  at  least.  She  swaggered  on: 

"  I'm  sure  I'm  going  to  ruin  Will  as  a  respectable  practi 
tioner Is  he  a  good  doctor,  Dr.  Gould?  " 

Kennicott's  rival  gasped  at  this  insult  to  professional  ethics, 
and  he  took  an  appreciable  second  before  he  recovered  his 
social  manner.  "  I'll  tell  you,  Mrs.  Kennicott."  He  smiled 
at  Kennicott,  to  imply  that  whatever  he  might  say  in  the 
stress  of  being  witty  was  not  to  count  against  him  in  the 
commercio-medical  warfare.  "  There's  some  people  in  town 
that  say  the  doc  is  a  fair  to  middlin'  diagnostician  and  pre 
scription-writer,  but  let  me  whisper  this  to  you — but  for 
heaven's  sake  don't  tell  him  I  said  so — don't  you  ever  go  to 
him  for  anything  more  serious  than  a  pendectomy  of  the  left 
ear  or  a  strabismus  of  the  cardiograph." 

No  one  save  Kennicott  knew  exactly  what  this  meant,  but 
they  laughed,  and  Sam  Clark's  party  assumed  a  glittering 


46  MAIN   STREET 

lemon-yellow  color  of  brocade  panels  and  champagne  and  tulle 
and  crystal  chandeliers  and  sporting  duchesses.  Carol  saw 
that  George  Edwin  Mott  and  the  blanched  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Dawson  were  not  yet  hypnotized.  They  looked  as  though  they 
wondered  whether  they  ought  to  look  as  though  they  disap 
proved.  She  concentrated  on  them: 

"  But  I  know  whom  I  wouldn't  have  dared  to  go  to  Colorado 
with!  Mr.  Dawson  there!  I'm  sure  he's  a  regular  heart- 
breaker.  When  we  were  introduced  he  held  my  hand  and 
squeezed  it  frightfully." 

"Haw!  Haw!  Haw!  "  The  entire  company  applauded.  Mr. 
Dawson  was  beatified..  He  had  been  called  many  things — 
loan-shark,  skinflint,  tightwad,  pussyfoot — but  he  had  never 
before  been  called  a  flirt. 

"  He  is  wicked,  isn't  he,  Mrs.  Dawson?  Don't  you  have  to 
lock  him  up?  " 

"  Oh  no,  but  maybe  I  better,"  attempted  Mrs.  Dawson,  a 
tint  on  her  pallid  face. 

For  fifteen  minutes  Carol  kept  it  up.  She  asserted  that  she 
was  going  to  stage  a  musical  comedy,  that  she  preferred  cafe 
parfait  to  beefsteak,  that  she  hoped  Dr.  Kennicott  would  never 
lose  his  ability  to  make  love  to  charming  women,  and  that 
she  had  a  pair  of  gold  stockings.  They  gaped  for  more.  But 
she  could  not  keep  it  up.  She  retired  to  a  chair  behind  Sam 
Clark's  bulk.  The  smile-wrinkles  solemnly  flattened  out  in 
the  faces  of  all  the  other  collaborators  in  having  a  party,  and 
again  they  stood  about  hoping  but  not  expecting  to  be  amused, 

Carol  listened.  Slie  discovered  that  conversation  did  not 
exist  in  Gopher  Prairie.  Even  at  this  affair,  which  brought 
out  the  young  smart  set,  the  hunting  squire  set,  the  respect 
able  intellectual  set,  and  the  solid  financial  set,  they  sat  up 
with  gaiety  as  with  a  corpse. 

Xs  Juanita  Haydock  talked  a  good  deal  in  her  rattling  voice 

but  it  was  invariably  of  personalities:  the  rumor  that  Raymie 

Wutherspoon  was  going  to  send  for  a  pair  of  patent  leather 

,     shoes  with  gray  buttoned  tops;   the  rheumatism  cf  Champ 

J     Perry;  the  state  of  Guy  Pollock's  grippe;  and  the  dementia  ot 

I    Jim  Howland  in  painting  his  fence  salmon-pink. 

\      Sam  Clark  had  been  talking  to  Carol  about  motor  cars, 

but  he  felt  his  duties  as  host.     While  he  droned,  his  br*r^s 

popped  up  and  down.     He  interrupted  himself,  "  Must  stir 

'em  up."    He  worried  at  his  wife,  "  Don't  you  think  I  better 


MAIN   STREET  47 

stir  'em  up?  "  He  shouldered  into  the  center  of  the  room,  and 
cried: 

"Let's  have  some  stunts,  folks." 

"Yes,  let's!  "  shrieked  Juanita  Haydock. 

"  Say,  Dave,  give  us  that  stunt  about  the  Norwegian  catch 
ing  a  hen." 

"You  bet;  that's  a  slick  stunt;  do  that,  Dave  I  "  cheered 
Chet  Dashaway. 

Mr.  Dave  Dyer  obliged. 

All  the  guests  moved  their  lips  in  anticipation  of  being  called 
on  for  their  own  stunts. 

"Ella,  come  on  and  recite  'Old  Sweetheart  of  Mine,'  for 
us,"  demanded  Sam. 

Miss  Ella  Stowbody,  the  spinster  daughter  of  the  Ionic  bank, 
scratched  her  dry  palms  and  blushed.  "  Oh,  you  don't  want 
to  hear  that  old  thing  again." 

"  Sure  we  do!    You  bet!  "  asserted  Sam. 

"  My  voice  is  in  terrible  shape  tonight." 

"Tut!     Come  on!  " 

Sam  loudly  explained  to  Carol,  "  Ella  is  our  shark  at  elocut- 
ing.  She's  had  professional  training.  She  studied  singing  and 
oratory  and 'dramatic  art  and  shorthand  for  a  year,  in  Mil 
waukee." 

Miss  Stowbody  was  reciting.  As  encore  to  "  An  Old  Sweet 
heart  of  Mine,"  she  gave  a  peculiarly  optimistic  poem  regard 
ing  the  value  of  smiles. 

There  were  four  other  stunts:  one  Jewish,  one  Irish,  one 
juvenile,  and  Nat  Hicks's  parody  of  Mark  Antony's  funeral 
oration. 

During  the  winter  Carol  was  to  hear  Dave  Dyer's  hen- 
catching  impersonation  seven  times,  "An  Old  Sweetheart  of 
Mine  "  nine  times,  the  Jewish  story  and  the  funeral  oration 
twice;  but  now  she  was  ardent  and,  because  she  did  so  want 
to  be  happy  and  simple-hearted,  she  was  as  disappointed  as 
the  others  when  the  stunts  were  finished,  and  the  party  in 
stantly  sank  back  into  coma. 

They  gave  up  trying  to  be  festive;  they  began  to  talk 
naturally,  as  they  did  at  their  shops  and  homes. 

The  men  and  women  divided,  as  they  had  been  tending  to 
do  all  evening.  Carol  was  deserted  by  the  men,  left  to  a 
group  of  matrons  who  steadily  pattered  of  children,  sickness, 
and  cooks — their  own  shop-talk.  She  was  piqued.  She  re- 


48  MAIN   STREET 

membered  visions  of  herself  as  a  smart  married  woman  in  a 
drawing-room,  fencing  with  clever  men.  Her  dejection  was 
relieved  by  speculation  as  to  what  the  men  were  discussing,  in 
the  corner  between  the  piano  and  the  phonograph.  Did  they 
rise  from  these  housewifely  personalities  to  a  larger  world 
of  abstractions  and  affairs? 

She  made  her  best  curtsy  to  Mrs.  Dawson;  she  twittered, 
"I  won't  have  my  husband  leaving  me  so  soon!  I'm  going 
over  and  pull  the  wretch's  ears."  She  rose  with  a  jeune  fille 
bow.  She  was  self-absorbed  and  self-approving  because  she 
had  attained  that  quality  of  sentimentality.  She  proudly 
dipped  across  the  room  and,  to  the  interest  and  commendation 
of  all  beholders,  sat  on  the  arm  of  Kennicott's  chair. 

He  was  gossiping  with  Sam  Clark,  Luke  Dawson,  Jackson 
Elder  of  the  planing-mill,  Chet  Dashaway,  Dave  Dyer,  Harry 
Haydock,  and  Ezra  Stowbody,  president  of  the  Ionic  bank. 

Ezra  Stowbody  was  a  troglodyte.  He  had  come  to  Gopher 
Prairie  in  1865.  He  was  a  distinguished  bird  of  prey — 
swooping  thin  nose,  turtle  mouth,  thick  brows,  port-wine 
cheeks,  floss  of  white  hair,  contemptuous  eyes.  He  was  not 
happy  in  the  social  changes  of  thirty  years.  Three  decades 
ago,  Dr.  Westlake,  Julius  Flickerbaugh  the  lawyer,  Merriman 
Peedy  the  Congregational  pastor  and  himself  had  been  the 
arbiters.  That  was  as  it  should  be;  the  fine  arts — medicine, 
'  law,  religion,  and  finance — recognized  as  aristocratic;  four 
Yankees  democratically  chatting  with  but  ruling  the  Ohioans 
and  Illini  and  Swedes  and  Germans  who  had  ventured  to 
\  follow  them.  But  Westlake  was  old,  almost  retired;  Julius 
Flickerbaugh  had  lost  much  of  his  practice  to  livelier  attorneys; 
Reverend  (not  The  Reverend)  Peedy  was  dead;  and  nobody 
was  impressed  in  this  rotten  age  of  automobiles  by  the  "  spank 
ing  grays  "  which  Ezra  still  drove.  The  town  was  as  hetero 
geneous  as  Chicago.  Norwegians  and  Germans  owned  stores. 
The  social  leaders  were  common  merchants.  Selling  nails  was 
considered  as  sacred  as  banking.  These  upstarts — the  Clarks, 
the  Haydocks — had  no  dignity.  They  were  sound  and  con 
servative  in  politics,  but  they  talked  about  motor  cars  and 
pump-guns  and  heaven  only  knew  what  new-fangled  fads.  Mr. 
Stowbody  felt  out  of  place  with  them.  But  his  brick  house 
with  the  mansard  roof  was  still  the  largest  residence  in  town, 
and  he  held  his  position  as  squire  by  occasionally  appealing 
among  the  younger  men  and  reminding  them  by  a  wintry  ey* 


MAIN    STREET  49 

that  without  the  banker  none  of  them  could  carry  on  theu 
vulgar  businesses. 

As  Carol  defied  decency  by  sitting  down  with  the  men,  Mr. 
Stowbody  was1  piping  to  Mr.  Dawson,  ^  !say,  Luke,  wnen  was't 
Biggins  first  settled  in  Winnebago  Township?  Wa'n't  it  in 

1879?  " 

"  Why  no  'twa'n't!  "  Mr.  Dawson  was  indignant.  "  He 
come  out  from  Vermont  in  1867 — no,  wait,  in  1868,  it  must 
have  been — and  took  a  claim  on  the  Rum  River,  quite  a  ways 
above  Anoka." 

"He  did  not!  "  roared  Mr.  Stowbody.  "He  settled  first 
in  Blue  Earth  County,  him  and  his  father!  " 

("  What's  the  point  at  issue?  "  Carol  whispered  to  Kenni- 
cott. 

("  Whether  this  old  duck  Biggins  had  an  English  setter  or 
a  Llewellyn.  They've  been  arguing  it  all  evening!  ") 

Dave  Dyer  interrupted  to  give  tidings,  "  D'  tell  you  that 
Clara  Biggins  was  in  town  couple  days  ago?  She  bought  a 
hot-water  bottle — expensive  one,  too — two  dollars  and  thirty 
cents!  " 

"  Yaaaaaah!  "  snarled  Mr.  Stowbody.  "  Course.  She's  just 
like  her  grandad  was.  Never  save  a  cent.  Two  dollars  and 
twenty — thirty,  was  it? — two  dollars  and  thirty  cents  for  a 
hot-water  bottle!  Brick  wrapped  up  in  a  flannel  petticoat  just 
as  good,  anyway!  " 

"  How's  Ella's  tonsils,  Mr.  Stowbody?  "  yawned  Chet  Dash- 
away. 

While  Mr.  Stowbody  gave  a  somatic  and  psychic  study  of 
them,  Carol  reflected,  "Are  they  really  so  terribly  interested 
in  Ella's  tonsils,  or  even  in  Ella's  esophagus?  I  wonder  if  I 
could  get  them  away  from  personalities?  Let's  risk  damna 
tion  and  try." 

"  There  hasn't  been  much  labor  trouble  around  here,  has 
there,  Mr.  Stowbody?  "  she  asked  innocently. 

"  No,  ma'am,  thank  God,  we've  been  free  from  that,  except 
maybe  with  hired  girls  and  farm-hands.  Trouble  enough  with 
these  foreign  farmers;  if  you  don't  watch  these  Swedes  they 
turn  socialist  or  populist  or  some  fool  thing  on  you  in  a 
minute.  Of  course,  if  they  have  loans  you  can  make  'em 
listen  to  reason.  I  just  have  'em  come  into  the  bank  for  a 
talk,  and  tell  'em  a  few  things.  I  don't  mind  their  being 
democrats,  so  much,  but  I  won't  stand  having  socialists  around. 


50  MAIN   STREET 

But  thank  God,  we  ain't  got  the  labor  trouble  they  have  in 
these  cities.  Even  Jack  Elder  here  gets  along  pretty  well,  in 
the  planing- mill,  don't  you,  Jack?  " 

"  Yep.  Sure.  Don't  need  so  many  skilled  workmen  in  my 
place,  and  it's  a  lot  of  these  cranky,  wage-hogging,  half- 
baked  skilled  mechanics  that  start  trouble — reading  a  lot  of 
this  anarchist  literature  and  union  papers  and  all." 

"  Do  you  approve  of  union  labor?  "  Carol  inquired  of  Mr. 
Elder. 

"Me?  I  should  say  not!  It's  like  this:  I  don't  mind 
dealing  with  my  men  if  they  think  they've  got  any  grievances — 
though  Lord  knows  what's  come  over  workmen,  nowadays — 
don't  appreciate  a  good  job.  But  still,  if  they  come  to  me 
honestly,  as  man  to  man,  I'll  talk  things  over  with  them. 
But  I'm  not  going  to  have  any  outsider,  any  of  these  walking 
delegates,  or  whatever  fancy  names  they  call  themselves  now — 
bunch  of  rich  grafters,  living  on  the  ignorant  workmen!  Not 
going  to  have  any  of  those  fellows  butting  in  and  telling  me 
how  to  run  my  business!  " 

Mr.  Elder  was  growing  more  excited,  more  belligerent  and 
patriotic.  "  I  stand  for  freedom  and  constitutional  rights.  If 
any  man  don't  like  my  shop,  he  can  get  up  and  git.  Same  way, 
if  I  don't  like  him,  he  gits.  And  that's  all  there  is  to  it.  I 
simply  can't  understand  all  these  complications  and  hoop-te- 
doodles  and  government  reports  and  wage-scales  and  God 
knows  what  all  that  these  fellows  are  balling  up  the  labor 
situation  with,  when  it's  all  perfectly  simple.  They  like  what 
I  pay  'em,  or  they  get  out.  That's  all  there  is  to  it!  " 

"  What  do  you  think  of  profit-sharing?  "  Carol  ventured. 

Mr.  Elder  thundered  his  answer,  while  the  others  nodded, 
solemnly  and  in  tune,  like  a  shop-window  of  flexible  toys, 
comic  mandarins  and  judges  and  ducks  and  clowns,  set  quiver- 
ing  by  a  breeze  from  the  open  door: 

"  All  this  profit-sharing  and  welfare  work  and  insurance  and 
old-age  pension  is  simply  poppycock.  Enfeebles  a  workman's 
independence — and  wastes  a  lot  of  honest  profit.  The  half- 
baked  thinker  that  isn't  dry  behind  the  ears  yet,  and  these 
suffragettes  and  God  knows  what  all  buttinskis  there  are  that 
are  trying  to  tell  a  business  man  how  to  run  his  business,  and 
some  of  these  college  professors  are  just  about  as  bad,  the 
whole  kit  and  bilin'  of  'em  are  nothing  in  God's  world  but 
socialism  in  disguise!  And  it's  my  bounden  duty  as  a  pro- 


MAIN   STREET  5r 

ducer  to  resist  every  attack  on  the  integrity  of  American  in 
dustry  to  the  last  ditch.  Yes— SIR!  " 

Mr.  Elder  wiped  his  brow. 

Dave  Dyer  added,  "  Sure!  You  bet!  What  they  ought  to 
do  is  simply  to  hang  every  one  of  these  agitators,  and  that 
would  settle  the  whole  thing  right  off.  Don't  you  think  so, 
doc?  " 

"  You  bet,"  agreed  Kennicott. 

The  conversation  was  at  last  relieved  of  the  plague  of  Carol's 
intrusions  and  they  settled  down  to  the  question  of  whether 
the  justice  of  the  peace  had  sent  that  hobo  drunk  to  jail  for 
ten  days  or  twelve.  It  was  a  matter  not  readily  determined. 
Then  Dave  Dyer  communicated  his  carefree  adventures  on  the 
gipsy  trail: 

"  Yep.  I  get  good  time  out  of  the  flivver.  'Bout  a  week 
ago  I  motored  down  to  New  Wurttemberg.  That's  forty- 
three No,  let's  see:  It's  seventeen  miles  to  Belldale,  and 

'bout  six  and  three-quarters,  call  it  seven,  to  Torgenquist,  and 
it's  a  good  nineteen  miles  from  there  to  New  Wurttemberg — 
seventeen  and  seven  and  nineteen,  that  makes,  uh,  let  me  see: 
seventeen  and  seven  's  twenty-four,  plus  nineteen,  well  say 
plus  twenty,  that  makes  forty-four,  well  anyway,  say  about 
forty-three  or  -four  miles  from  here  to  New  Wurttemberg.  We 
got  started  about  seven-fifteen,  prob'ly  seven- twenty,  because 
I  had  to  stop  and  fill  the  radiator,  and  we  ran  along,  just  keep 
ing  up  a  good  steady  gait " 

Mr.  Dyer  did  finally,  for  reasons  and  purposes  admitted  and 
justified,  attain  to  New  Wurttemberg. 

Once — only  once — the  presence  of  the  alien  Carol  was  recog 
nized.  Chet  Dashaway  leaned  over  and  said  asthmatically, 
"  Say,  uh,  have  you  been  reading  this  serial  '  Two  Out '  in 
Tingling  Tales?  Corking  yarn!  Gosh,  the  fellow  that  wrote 
it  certainly  can  sling  baseball  slang!  " 

The  others  tried  to  look  literary.  Harry  Haydock  offered, 
"  Juanita  is  a  great  hand  for  reading  high-class  stuff,  like 
'Mid  the  Magnolias'  by  this  Sara  Hetwiggin  Butts,  and 
'Riders  of  Ranch  Reckless.'  Books.  But  me,"  he  glanced 
about  importantly,  as  one  convinced  that  no  other  hero  had 
ever  been  in  so  strange  a  plight,  "  I'm  so  darn  busy  I  don't 
have  much  time  to  read." 

"  I  never  read  anything  I  can't  checK  against,"  ,said  Sam 
Clark. 


52  MAIN   STREET 

Thus  ended  the  literary  portion  of  the  conversation,  and 
for  seven  minutes  Jackson  Elder  outlined  reasons  for  believing 
that  the  pike-fishing  was  better  on  the  west  shore  of  Lake 
Minniemashie  than  on  the  east — though  it  was  indeed  quite 
true  that  on  the  east  shore  Nat  Hicks  had  caught  a  pike 
altogether  admirable. 

The  talk  went  on.  It  did  go  on!  Their  voices  were 
monotonous,  thick,  emphatic.  They  were  harshly  pompous,  like 
men  in  the  smoking-compartments  of  Pullman  cars.  They  did 
not  bore  Carol.  They  frightened  her.  She  panted,  "  They 
will  be  cordial  to  me,  because  my  man  belongs  to  their  tribe- 
God  help  me  if  I  were  an  outsider!  " 

Smiling  as  changelessly  as  an  ivory  figurine  she  sat  quiescent, 
avoiding  thought,  glancing  about  the  living-room  and  hall,  not 
ing  their  betrayal  of  unimaginative  commercial  prosperity. 
Kennicott  said,  "  Dandy  interior,  eh?  My  idea  of  how  a 
place  ought  to  be  furnished.  Modern."  She  looked  polite, 
and  observed  the  oiled  floors,  hard-wood  staircase,  unused 
fireplace  with  tiles  which  resembled  brown  linoleum,  cut-glass 
vases  standing  upon  doilies,  and  the  barred,  shut,  forbidding 
unit  bookcases  that  were  half  filled  with  swashbuckler  novels 
and  unread-looking  sets  of  Dickens,  Kipling,  O.  Henry,  and 
Elbert  Hubbard. 

She  perceived  that  even  personalities  were  failing  to  hold 
the  party.  The  room  filled  with  hesitancy  as  with  a  fog. 
People  cleared  their  throats,  tried  to  choke  down  yawns.  The 
men  shot  their  cuffs  and  the  women  stuck  their  combs  more 
firmly  into  their  back  hair. 

Then  a  rattle,  a  daring  hope  in  every  eye,  the  swinging  of 
a  door,  the  smell  of  strong  coffee,  Dave  Dyer's  mewing  voice 
in  a  triumphant,  "  The  eats!  "  They  began  to  chatter.  They 
had  something  to  do.  They  could  escape  from  themselves* 
They  fell  upon  the  food — chicken  sandwiches,  maple  cake, 
drug-store  ice  cream.  Even  when  the  food  was  gone  they  re 
mained  cheerful.  They  could  go  home,  any  time  now,  and  go 
to  bed! 

They  went,  with  a  flutter  of  coats,  chiffon  scarfs,  and  good- 
bys. 

Carol  and  Kennicott  walked  home. 

'"'  Did  you  like  them?  "  he  asked. 

"  They  were  terribly  sweet  to  me." 

71  Uh,  Carrie You  ought  to  be  more  careful  about 


MAIN   STREET  53 

shocking  folks.  Talking  about  gold  stockings,  and  about 
showing  your  ankles  to  schoolteachers  and  all!  "  More 
mildly:  "  You  gave  'em  a  good  time,  but  I'd  watch  out  for 
that,  'f  I  were  you.  Juanita  Haydock  is  such  a  damn  cat.  I 
wouldn't  give  her  a  chance  to  criticize  me." 

"  My  poor  effort  to  lift  up  the  party!  Was  I  wrong  to 
try  to  amuse  them?  " 

"  No!    No!    Honey,  I  didn't  mean You  were  the  only 

up-and-coming  person  in  the  bunch.    I  just  mean Don't  » 

get  onto  legs  and  all  that  immoral  stuff.    Pretty  conservative, 
'crowd." 

She  was  silent,  raw  with  the  shameful  thought  that  the 
attentive  circle  might  have  been  criticizing  her,  laughing  at 
her. 

"  Don't,  please  don't  worry!  "  he  pleaded. 

Silence. 

"  Gosh,  I'm  sorry  I  spoke  about  it.    I  just  meant But 

they  were  crazy  about  you.  Sam  said  to  me,  '  That  little 
lady  of  yours  is  the  slickest  thing  that  ever  came  to  this 
town,'  he  said;  and  Ma  Dawson — I  didn't  hardly  know 
whether  she'd  like  you  or  not,  she's  such  a  dried-up  old  bird, 
but  she  said,  '  Your  bride  is  so  quick  and  bright,  I  declare, 
she  just  wakes  me  up.' " 

Carol  liked  praise,  the  flavor  and  fatness  of  it,  but  she  was 
so  energetically  being  sorry  for  herself  that  she  could  not 
taste  this  commendation. 

"Please!  Come  on!  Cheer  up!  "  His  lips  said  it,  his 
anxious  shoulder  said  it,  his  arm  about  her  said  it,  as  they 
halted  on  the  obscure  porch  of  their  house. 

"  Do  you  care  if  they  think  I'm  flighty,  Will?  " 

"  Me?  Why,  I  wouldn't  care  if  the  whole  world  thought 
you  were  this  or  that  or  anything  else.  You're  my — well, 
you're  my  soul!  " 

He  was  an  undefined  mass,  as  solid-seeming  as  rock.  She 
found  his  sleeve,  pinched  it,  cried,  "I'm  glad!  It's  sweet  to 
be  wanted!  You  must  tolerate  my  frivolousness.  You're  all 
I  have!  " 

He  lifted  her,  carried  her  into  the  house,  and  with  her 
arms  about  his  neck  she  forgot  Main  Street. 


CHAPTER  V 


"WE'LL  steal  the  whole  day,  and  go  hunting.  I  want  you 
to  see  the  country  round  here,"  Kennicott  announced  at  break 
fast.  "  I'd  take  the  car — want  you  to  see  how  swell  she  runs 
since  I  put  in  a  new  piston.  But  we'll  take  a  team,  so  we  can 
get  right  out  into  the  fields.  Not  many  prairie  chickens  left 
now,  but  we  might  just  happen  to  run  onto  a  small  covey." 

He  fussed  over  his  hunting-kit.  He  pulled  his  hip  boots 
out  to  full  length  and  examined  them  for  holes.  He  feverishly 
counted  his  shotgun  shells,  lecturing  her  on  the  qualities  of 
smokeless  powder.  He  drew  the  new  hammerless  shotgun  out 
of  its  heavy  tan  leather  case  and  made  her  peep  through  the 
barrels  to  see  how  dazzlingly  free  they  were  from  rust. 

The  world  of  hunting  and  camping-outfits  and  fishing-tackle 
was  unfamiliar  to  her,  and  in  Kennicott's  interest  she  found 
something  creative  and  joyous.  She  examined  the  smooth 
stock,  the  carved  hard  rubber  butt  of  the  gun.  The  shells,  with 
their  brass  caps  and  sleek  green  bodies  and  hieroglyphics  on 
the  wads,  were  cool  and  comfortably  heavy  in  her  hands. 

Kennicott  wore  a  brown  canvas  hunting-coat  with  vast 
pockets  lining  the  inside,  corduroy  trousers  which  bulged  at 
the  wrinkles,  peeled  and  scarred  shoes,  a  scarecrow  felt  hat. 
In  this  uniform  he  felt  virile.  They  clumped  out  to  the  livery 
buggy,  they  packed  the  kit  and  the  box  of  lunch  into  the  back, 
crying  to  each  other  that  it  was  a  magnificent  day. 

Kennicott  had  borrowed  Jackson  Elder's  red  and  white 
English  setter,  a  complacent  dog  with  a  waving  tail  of  silver 
hair  which  flickered  in  the  sunshine.  As  they  started,  the  dog 
yelped,  and  leaped  at  the  horses'  heads,  till  Kennicott  took 
him  into  the  buggy,  where  he  nuzzled  Carol's  knees  and  leaned 
out  to  sneer  at  farm  mongrels. 

The  grays  clatte**d  out  on  the  hard  dirt  roac  wiih  a 
pleasant  song  of  hpofs:  "  Ta  ta  ta  rat!  Ta  ta  ta  rat!  "  It 
was  early  and  fresh,  the  air  whistling,  frost  bright  on  the 
golden  rod.  As  ^he  sun  warmed  the  world  of  stubble  into  a 

54 


MAIN    STREET  55 

welter  of  yellow  they  turned  from  the  highroad,  through  the 
tctrs  of  a  farmer's  gate,  into  a  field,  slowly  bumping  over  the 
uneven  earth.  In  a  hollow  of  the  rolling  prairie  they  lost 
sight  even  of  the  country  road.  It  was  warm  and  placid. 
Locusts  trilled  among  the  dry  wheat-stalks,  and  brilliant  little 
flies  hurtled  across  the  buggy.  A  buzz  of  content  filled  the 
air.  Crows  loitered  and  gossiped  in  the  sky. 

The  dog  had  been  let  out  and  after  a  dance  of  excitement 
he  settled  down  to  a  steady  quartering  of  the  field,  forth 
and  back,  forth  and  back,  his  nose  down. 

"  Pete  Rustad  owns  this  farm,  and  he  told  me  he  saw  a 
small  covey  of  chickens  in  the  west  forty,  last  week.  Maybe 
we'll  get  some  sport  after  all,"  Kennicott  chuckled  blissfully. 

She  watched  the  dog  in  suspense,  breathing  quickly  every 
time  he  seemed  to  halt.  She  had  no  desire  to  slaughter 
birds,  but  she  did  desire  to  belong  to  Kennicott's  world. 

The  dog  stopped,  on  the  point,  a  fcrepaw  held  up. 

"  By  golly!  He's  hit  a  scent!  Come  on!  "  squealed  Kenni 
cott.  He  leaped  from  the  buggy,  twisted  the  reins  about  the 
^nip-socket,  swung  her  out,  caught  up  his  gun,  slipped  in  two 
shells,  stalked  toward  the  rigid  dog,  Carol  pattering  after 
him.  The  setter  crawled  ahead,  his  tail  quivering,  his  belly 
close  to  the  stubble.  Carol  was  nervous.  She  expected  clouds 
of  large  birds  to  fly  up  instantly.  Her  eyes  were  strained  with 
staring.  But  they  followed  the  dog  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile, 
turning,  doubling,  crossing  two  low  hills,  kicking  through 
a  swale  of  weeds,  crawling  between  the  strands  of  a  barbed- 
wire  fence.  The  walking  was  hard  on  her  pavement-trained 
feet.  The  earth  was  lumpy,  the  stubble  prickly  and  lined  with 
grass,  thistles,  abortive  stumps  of  clover.  She  dragged  and 
floundered. 

She  heard  Kennicott  gasp,  "  Look!  "  Three  gray  birds  were 
starting  up  from  the  stubble.  They  were  round,  dumpy,  like 
enormous  bumble  bees.  Kennicott  was  sighting,  moving  the 
barrel.  She  was  agitated.  Why  didn't  he  fire?  The  birds 
would  be  gone!  Then  a  crash,  another,  and  two  birds  turned 
somersauiis  in  the  air,  plumped  down. 

When  he  showed  her  the  birds  she  had  no  sensation  of  blood. 
These  heaps  of  feathers  were  so  soft  and  unbruised — there 
was  about  them  no  hint  of  death.  She  watched  her  conquering 
man  tuck  them  into  his  inside  pocket,  and  trudged  with  him 
back  to  tlie  buggy. 


56  MAIN   STREET 

They  found  no  more  prairie  chickens  that  morning. 

At  noon  they  drove  into  her  first  farmyard,  a  private  village, 
a  white  house  with  no  porches  save  a  low  and  quite  dirty 
stoop  at  the  back,  a  crimson  barn  with  white  trimmings,  a 
glazed  brick  silo,  an  ex-carriage-shed,  now  the  garage  of  a  Ford, 
an  unpainted  cow-stable,  a  chicken-house,  a  pig-pen,  a  corn- 
crib,  a  granary,  the  galvanized-iron  skeleton  tower  of  a  wind 
mill.  The  dooryard  was  of  packed  yellow  clay,  treeless,  barren 
of  grass,  littered  with  rusty  plowshares  and  wheels  of  dis 
carded  cultivators.  Hardened  trampled  mud,  like  lava,  filled 
the  pig-pen.  The  doors  of  the  house  were  grime-rubbed,  the 
corners  and  eaves  were  rusted  with  rain,  and  the  child  who 
stared  at  them  from  the  kitchen  window  was  smeary-faced. 
But  beyond  the  barn  was  a  clump  of  scarlet  geraniums;  the 
prairie  breeze  was  sunshine  in  motion;  the  flashing  metal 
blades  of  the  windmill  revolved  with  a  lively  hum;  a  horse 
neighed,  a  rooster  crowed,  martins  flew  in  and  out  of  the 
cow-stable. 

A  small  spare  woman  with  flaxen  hair  trotted  from  the 
house.  She  was  twanging  a  Swedish  patois — not  in  monotone, 
like  English,  but  singing  it,  with  a  lyrical  whine: 

"  Pete  he  say  you  kom  pretty  soon  hunting,  doctor.  My, 
dot's  fine  you  kom.  Is  dis  de  bride?  Ohhhh!  Ve  yoost  say 
las'  night,  ve  hope  maybe  ve  see  her  som  day.  My,  soch  a 
pretty  lady!  "  Mrs.  Rustad  was  shining  with  welcome.  "  Veil, 
veil!  Ay  hope  you  lak  dis  country!  Von't  you  stay  for  dinner, 
doctor?  " 

"  No,  but  I  wonder  if  you  wouldn't  like  to  give  us  a  glass 
of  milk?  "  condescended  Kennicott. 

"  Veil  Ay  should  say  Ay  vill!  You  vait  bar  a  second  and 
Ay  run  on  de  milk-house!  "  She  nervously  hastened  to  a  tiny 
red  building  beside  the  windmill ;  she  came  back  with  a  pitcher 
of  milk  from  which  Carol  filled  the  thermos  bottle. 

As  they  drove  off  Carol  admired,  "  She's  the  dearest  thing 
I  ever  saw.  And  she  adores  you.  You  are  the  Lord  of  the 
Manor." 

"  Oh  no,"  much  pleased,  "  but  still  they  do  ask  my  advice 
about  things.  Bully  people,  these  Scandinavian  farmers.  And 
prosperous,  too.  Helga  Rustad,  she's  still  scared  of  America, 
but  her  kids  will  be  doctors  and  lawyers  and  governors  of  the 
state  and  any  darn  thing  they  want  to." 

"  I  wonder "    Carol  was  plunged  back  into  last  night's 


MAIN   STREET  5V 

Weltschmerz.    "  I  wonder  if  these  farmers  aren't  bigger  than 
we  are?     So  simple  and  hard-working.     The  town  lives  on 
them.     We  townies  are  parasites,  and  yet  we  feel  superior——  <>r 
to  them.     Last  night  I  heard  Mr.  Haydock  talking  about  \"*^ 
'hicks/     Apparently  he  despises  the  farmers  because  they  ^9.  « 
haven't  reached  the  social  heights  of  selling  thread  and  but-   \  u<  -V 
tons."  ^W 

"Parasites?  Us?  Where'd  the  farmers  be  without  the 
town?  Who  lends  them  money?  Who — why,  we  supply  them 
with  everything!  " 

"  Don't  you  find  that  some  of  the  farmers  think  they  pay__ 
too  much  for  the  services  of  the  towns?  " 

"  Oh,  of  course  there's  a  lot  of  cranks  among  the  farmers 
same  as  there  are  among  any  class.  Listen  to  some  of  these 
kickers,  a  fellow'd  think  that  the  farmers  ought  to  run  the 
state  and  the  whole  shooting-match — probably  if  they  had 
their  way  they'd  fill  up  the  legislature  with  a  lot  of  farmers 
in  manure-covered  boots — yes,  and  they'd  come  tell  me  I  was 
hired  on  a  salary  now,  and  couldn't  fix  my  fees!  That'd  be 
fine  for  you,  wouldn't  it!  " 

"  But  why  shouldn't  they?  " 

"Why?     That  bunch  of Telling  me Oh,  for 

heaven's  sake,  let's  quit  arguing.    All  this  discussing  may  be  " 

all  right  at  a  party  but Let's  forget  it  while  we're 

hunting." 

"  I  know.  The  Wonderlust — probably  it's  a  worse  affliction 
than  the  Wanderlust.  I  just  wonder " 

She  told  herself  that  she  had  everything  in  the  world. 
And  after  each  self-rebuke  she  stumbled  again  on  "  I  just 
wonder " 

They  ate  their  sandwiches  by  a  prairie  slew:  long  grass 
reaching  up  out  of  clear  water,  mossy  bogs,  red-winged  black 
birds,  the  scum  a  splash  of  gold-green.  Kennicott  smoked  a 
pipe  while  she  leaned  back  in  the  buggy  and  let  her  tired  spirit 
be  absorbed  in  the  Nirvana  of  the  incomparable  sky. 

They  lurched  to  the  highroad  and  awoke  from  their  sun- 
soaked  drowse  at  the  sound  of  the  clopping  hoofs.  They 
paused  to  look  for  partridges  in  a  rim  of  woods,  little  woods, 
very  clean  and  shiny  and  gay,  silver  birches  and  poplars 
with  immaculate  green  trunks,  encircling  a  lake  of  sandy  bot 
tom,  a  splashing  seclusion  demure  in  the  welter  of  hot  prairie. 

Kennicott  brought  down  a  fat  red  squirrel  and  at  dusk  he  had 


^8  MAIN    STREET 

a  dramatic  shot  at  a  flight  of  ducks  whirling  down  from  the 
upper  air,  skimming  the  lake,  instantly  vanishing. 

They  drove  home  under  the  sunset.  Mounds  of  straw,  and 
wheat-stacks  like  bee-hives,  stood  out  in  startling  rose  and 
gold,  and  the  green- tufted  stubble  glistened.  As  the  vast 
girdle  of  crimson  darkened,  the  fulfilled  land  became  autum 
nal  in  deep  reds  and  browns.  The  black  road  before  the  buggy 
turned  to  a  faint  lavender,  then  was  blotted  to  uncertain 
grayness.  Cattle  came  in  a  long  line  up  to  the  barred  gates 
of  the  farmyards,  and  over  the  resting  land  was  a  dark  glow. 

Carol  had  found  the  dignity  and  greatness  which  had  failed 
her  in  Main  Street. 


n 

Till  they  had  a  maid  they  took  noon  dinner  and  six  o'clock 
supper  at  Mrs.  Gurrey's  boarding-house. 

Mrs.  Elisha  Gurrey,  relict  of  Deacon  Gurrey  the  dealer  in 
hay  and  grain,  was  a  pointed-nosed,  simpering  woman  with 
iron-gray  hair  drawn  so  tight  that  it  resembled  a  soiled  hand 
kerchief  covering  her  head.  But  she  was  unexpectedly  cheer 
ful,  and  her  dining-room,  with  its  thin  tablecloth  on  a  long 
pine  table,  had  the  decency  of  clean  bareness. 

In  the  line  of  unsmiling,  methodically  chewing  guests,  like 
horses  at  a  manger,  Carol  came  to  distinguish  one  countenance: 
the  pale,  long,  spectacled  face  and  sandy  pompadour  hair  of 
Mr.  Raymond  P.  Wutherspoon,  known  as  "  Raymie,"  pro 
fessional  bachelor,  manager  and  one  half  the  sales-force  in  the 
shoe-department  of  the  Bon  Ton  Store. 

"  You  will  enjoy  Gopher  Prairie  very  much,  Mrs.  Kennicott," 
petitioned  Raymie.  His  eyes  were  like  those  of  a  clog  waiting 
to  be  let  in  out  of  the  cold.  He  passed  the  stewed  apricots 
effusively.  "  There  are  a  great  many  bright  cultured  people 
here.  Mrs.  Wilks,  the  Christian  Science  reader,  is  a  very 
bright  woman — though  I  am  not  a  Scientist  myself,  in  fact  I 
sing  in  the  Episcopal  choir.  And  Miss  Sherwin  of  the  high 
school — she  is  such  a  pleasing,  bright  girl — I  was  fitting  her 
to  a  pair  of  tan  gaiters  yesterday,  I  declare,  it  really  was  a 
pleasure." 

"  Gimme  the  butter,  Carrie,"  was  Kennicott's  comment.  She 
defied  him  by  encouraging  Raymie: 

"  Do  you  have  amateur  dramatics  and  so  on  here?  " 


MAIN    STREET  59 

"Oh  yes!  The  town's  just  full  of  talent.  The  Knights  of 
Pythias  put  on  a  dandy  minstrel  show  last  year." 

"  It's  nice  you're  so  enthusiastic." 

"  Oh,  do  you  really  think  so?  Lots  of  folks  jolly  me  for 
trying  to  get  up  shows  and  so  on.  I  tell  them  they  have  more 
artistic  gifts  than  they  know.  Just  yesterday  I  was  saying 
to  Harry  Haydock:  if  he  would  read  poetry,  like  Longfellow, 
or  if  he  would  join  the  band — I  get  so  much  pleasure  out  of 
playing  the  cornet,  and  our  band-leader,  Del  Snafflin,  is  such 
a  good  musician,  I  often  say  he  ought  to  give  up  his  barbering 
and  become  a  professional  musician,  he  could  play  the  clarinet 
in  Minneapolis  or  New  York  or  anywhere,  but — but  I  couldn't 
get  Harry  to  see  it  at  all  and — I  hear  you  and  the  doctor  went 
out  hunting  yesterday.  Lovely  country,  isn't  it.  And  did  you 
make  some  calls?  *The  mercantile  life  isn't  inspiring  like 
medicine.  It, must  be  wonderful  to  see  how  patients  trust 
you,  doctor." 

"  Huh.  It's  me  that's  got  to  do  all  the  trusting.  Be  dame 
sight  more  wonderful  'f  they'd  pay  their  bills,"  grumbled 
Kennicott  and,  to  Carol,  he  whispered  something  which 
sounded  like  "  gentleman  hen." 

But  Raymie's  pale  eyes  were  watering  at  her.  She  helped 
him  with,  "  So  you  like  to  read  poetry?  " 

"  Oh  yes,  so  much — though  to  tell  the  truth,  I  don't  get  much 

time  for  reading,  we're  always  so  busy  at  the  store  and 

But  we  had  the  dandiest  professional  reciter  at  the  Pythian 
Sisters  sociable  last  winter." 

Carol  thought  she  heard  a  grunt  from  the  traveling  salesman 
at  the  end  of  the  table,  and  Kennicott's  jerking  elbow  was  a 
grunt  embodied.  She  persisted: 

"  Do  you  get  to  see  many  plays,  Mr.  Wutherspoon?  " 

He  shone  at  her  like  a  dim  blue  March  moon,  and  sighed, 
"  No,  but  I  do  love  the  movies.  I'm  a  real  fan.  One  trouble 
with  books  is  that  they're  not  so  thoroughly  safeguarded  by 
intelligent  censors  as  the  movies  are,  and  when  you  drop  into 
the  library  and  take  out  a  book  you  never  know  what  you're 
wasting  your  time  on.  What  I  like  in  books  is  a  wholesome, 

really  improving  story,  and  sometimes Why,  once  I  started 

a  novel  by  this  fellow  Balzac  that  you  read  about,  and  it 
told  how  a  lady  wasn't  living  with  her  husband,  I  mean  she 

isn't  his  wife.  It  went  into  details,  disgustingly!  And  the 
lish  was  real  poor.  I  spoke  to  the  library  about  it,  and 


60  MAIN    STREET 

-     they  took  it  off  the  shelves.    I'm  not  narrow,  but  I  must  say 
I  don't  see  any  use  in  this  deliberately  dragging  in  immorality! 
Life  itself  is  so  full  of  temptations  that  in  literature  one  wants 
••;  only  that  which  is  pure  and  uplifting." 
x     "What's  the  name  of  that  Balzac  yarn?    Where  can  I  get 
hold  of  it?  "  giggled  the  traveling  salesman. 

Raymie  ignored  him.  "  But  the  movies,  they  are  mostly- 
clean,  and  their  humor Don't  you  think  that  the  ir^st  es 
sential  quality  for  a  person  to  have  is  a  sense  of  humor?  " 

"  I  don't  know.    I  really  haven't  much,"  said  Carol. 

He  shook  his  finger  at  her.  "  Now,  now,  you're  too  modest. 
I'm  sure  we  can  all  see  that  you  have  a  perfectly  corking  sense 
of  humor.  Besides,  Dr.  Kennicott  wouldn't  marry  a  lady  that 
didn't  have.  We  all  know  how  he  loves  his  fun!  " 

"You  bet.  I'm  a  jokey  old  bird.  Come  on,  Carrie;  let's 
beat  it,"  remarked  Kennicott. 

Raymie  implored,  "  And  what  is  your  chief  artistic  interest, 
Mrs.  Kennicott?  " 

"  Oh "  Aware  that  the  traveling  salesman  had  mur 
mured,  "  Dentistry,"  she  desperately  hazarded,  "  Architecture." 

"  That's  a  real  nice  art.  I've  always  said — when  Haydock  & 
Simons  were  finishing  the  new  front  on  the  Bon  Ton  building, 
the  old  man  came  to  me,  you  know,  Harry's  father,  c  D.  H.,' 
I  always  call  him,  and  he  asked  me  how  I  liked  it,  and  I  said 
to  him,  '  Look  here,  D.  H.,'  I  said — you  see,  he  was  going  to 
leave  the  front  plain,  and  I  said  to  him,  'It's  all  very  well 
to  have  modern  lighting  and  a  big  display-space,'  I  said,  '  but 
when  you  get  that  in,  you  want  to  have  some  architecture,  too,' 
I  said,  and  he  laughed  and  said  he  guessed  maybe  I  was  right, 
and  so  he  had  'em  put  on  a  cornice." 

"  Tin!  "  observed  the  traveling  salesman. 

Raymie  bared  his  teeth  like  a  belligerent  mouse.  "Well, 
what  if  it  is  tin?  That's  not  my  fault.  I  told  D.  H.  to  make 
it  polished  granite.  You  make  me  tired!  " 

"Leave  us  go!  Come  on,  Carrie,  leave  us  go!"  from 
Kennicott. 

Raymie  waylaid  them  in  the  hall  and  secretly  informed  Carol 
that  she  musn't  mind  the  traveling  salesman's  coarseness — 
he  belonged  to  the  hwa  pollwa. 

Kennicott  chuckled,  "  Well,  child,  how  about  it?  Do  you 
prefer  an  artistic  guy  like  Raymie  to  stupid  boobs  like  Sam 
Clark  and  me?  " 


MAIN   STREET  61 

"My  dear!  Let's  go  home,  and  play  pinochle,  and  laugh, 
and  be  foolish,  and  slip  up  to  bed,  and  sleep  without  dreaming. 
It's  beautiful  to  be  just  a  solid  citizeness!  " 


in 
From  the  Gopher  Prairie  Weekly  Dauntless: 

One  of  the  most  charming  affairs  of  the  season  was  held  Tuesday 
evening  at  the  handsome  new  residence  of  Sam  and  Mrs.  Clark, 
when  many  of  our  most  prominent  citizens  gathered  to  greet  the 
lovely  new  bride  of  our  popular  local  physician,  Dr.  Will  Kennicqtt. 
All  present  spoke  of  the  many  charms  of  the  bride,  formerly  Miss 
Carol  Milford  of  St.  Paul.  Games  and  stunts  were  the  order  of  the 
day,  with  merry  talk  and  conversation.  At  a  late  hour  dainty 
refreshments  were  served,  and  the  party  broke  up  with  many 
expressions  of  pleasure  at  the  pleasant  affair.  Among  those  present 

were  Mesdames  Kennicott,  Elder 

*    *    * 

,  Dr.  Will  Kennicott,  for  the  past  several  years  one  of  our  most 
popular  and  skilful  physicians  and  surgeons,  gave  the  town  a 
delightful  surprise  when  he  returned  from  an  extended  honeymoon 
tour  in  Colorado  this  week  with  his  charming  bride,  nee  Miss  Carol 
Milford  of  St.  Paul,  whose  family  are  socially  prominent  in 
Minneapolis  and  Mankato.  Mrs.  Kennicott  is  a  lady  of  manifold 
charms,  not  only  of  striking  charm  of  appearance  but  is  also  a 
distinguished  graduate  of  a  school  in  the  East  and  has  for  the 
past  year  been  prominently  connected  in  an  important  position  of 
responsibility  with  the  St.  Paul  Public  Library,  in  which  city 
Dr.  "Will"  had  the  good  fortunesto  meet  her.  The  city  of 
Gopher  Prairie  welcomes  her  to  our  "midst  and  prophesies  for  her 
many  happy  years  in  the  energetic  city  of  the  twin  lakes  and 
the  future.  The  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Kennicott  will  reside  for  the  present 
at  the  Doctor's  home  on  Poplar  Street  which  his  charming  mother 
has  been  keeping  for  him  who  has  now  returned  to  her  own  home 
at  Lac-qui-Meurt  leaving  a  host  of  friends  who  regret  her  absence 
and  hope  to  see  her  soon  with  us  again. 


IV 

She  knew  that  if  she  was  ever  to  effect  any  of  the  "  reforms  " 
which  she  had  pictured,  she  must  have  a  starting-place.  What 
confused  her  during  the  three  or  four  months  after  her  marriage 
was  not  lack  of  perception  that  she  must  be  definite,  but  sheer 
careless  happiness  of  her  first  home. 

In  the  pride  of  being  a  housewife  she  loved  every  detail — 
the  brocade  armchair  with  the  weak  back,  even  the  brass  water' 


62  MAIN    STREET 

cock  on  the  hot-water  reservoir,  when  she  had  become  familiar 
with  it  by  trying  to  scour  it  to  brilliance. 

She  found  a  maid — plump  radiant  Bea  Sorenson  from 
Scandia  Crossing.  Bea  was  droll  in  her  attempt  to  be  at  once 
a  respectful  servant  and  a  bosom  friend.  They  laughed  to 
gether  over  the  fact  that  the  stove  did  not  draw,  over  the 
slipperiness  of  fish  in  the  pan. 

Like  a  child  playing  Grandma  in  a  trailing  skirt,  Carol 
paraded  uptown  for  her  marketing,  crying  greetings  to  house 
wives  along  the  way.  Everybody  bowed  to  her,  strangers  and 
all,  and  made  her  feel  that  they  wanted  her,  that  she  belonged 
here.  In  city  shops  she  was  merely  A  Customer — a  hat,  a 
voice  to  bore  a  harassed  clerk.  Here  she  was  Mrs.  Doc 
Kennicott,  and  her  preferences  in  grape-fruit  and  manners  were 
known  and  remembered  and  worth  discussing.  .  .  ,  even 
if  they  weren't  worth  fulfilling. 

Shopping  was  a  delight  of  brisk  conferences.  The  very  mer 
chants  whose  droning  she  found  the  dullest  at  the  two  or  three 
parties  which  were  given  to  welcome  her  were  the  pleasantest 
confidants  of  all  when  they  had  something  to  talk  about — 
lemons  or  cotton  voile  or  floor-oil.  With  that  skip- jack  Dave 
Dyer,  the  druggist,  she  conducted  a  long  mock-quarrel.  She 
pretended  that  he  cheated  her  in  the  price  of  magazines  and 
candy;  he  pretended  she  was  a  detective  from  the  Twin  Cities. 
He  hid  behind  the  prescription-counter,  and  when  she  stamped 
her  foot  he  came  out  wailing,  "  Honest,  I  haven't  done  nothing 
crooked  today — not  yet." 

She  never  recalled  her  first  impression  of  Main  Street ;  never 
had  precisely  the  same  despair  at  its  ugliness.  By  the  end  of 
two  shopping- tours  everything  had  changed  proportions.  As 
she  never  entered  it,  the  Minniemashie  House  ceased  to  exist 
for  her.  Clark's  Hardware  Store,  Dyer's  Drug  Store,  the 
groceries  of  Ole  Jenson  and  Frederick  Ludelmeyer  and  How- 
land  &  Gould,  the  meat  markets,  the  notions  shop — they  ex 
panded,  and  hid  all  other  structures.  When  she  entered  Mr. 
Ludelmeyer's  store  and  he  wheezed,  "  Goot  mornin',  Mrs. 
Kennicott.  Veil,  dis  iss  a  fine  day,"  she  did  not  notice  the 
dustiness  of  the  shelves  nor  the  stupidity  of  the  girl  clerk; 
and  she  did  not  remember  the  mute  colloquy  with  him  on  her 
first  view  of  Main  Street. 

She  could  not  find  half  the  kinds  of  food  she  wanted,  but 
that  made  shopping  more  of  an  adventure.  When  she  did 


MAIN   STREET  63 

contrive  to  get  sweetbreads  at  Dahl  &  Oleson's  Meat  Market 
the  triumph  was  so  vast  that  she  buzzed  with  excitement  and 
admired  the  strong  wise  butcher,  Mr.  Dahl. 

She  appreciated  the  homely  ease  of  village  life.  She  liked 
the  old  men,  farmers,  G.A.R.  veterans,  who  when  they  gos 
siped  sometimes  squatted  on  their  heels  on  the  sidewalk,  like 
resting  Indians,  and  reflectively  spat  over  the  curb. 

She  found  beauty  in  the  children. 

She  had  suspected  that  her  married  friends  exaggerated  their 
passion  for  children.  But  in  her  work  in  the  library,  children 
had  become  individuals  to  her,  citizens  of  the  State  with  their 
own  rights  and  their  own  senses  of  humor.  In  the  library 
she  had  not  had  much  time  to  give  them,  but  now  she  knew 
the  luxury  of  stopping,  gravely  asking  Bessie  Clark  whether 
her  doll  had  yet  recovered  from  its  rheumatism,  and  agreeing 
with  Oscar  Martinsen  that  it  would  be  Good  Fun  to  go  trapping 
"  mushrats." 

She  touched  the  thought,  "It  would  be  sweet  to  have  a 

baby  of  my  own.    I  do  want  one.    Tiny No!     Not  yet! 

There's  so  much  to  do.  And  I'm  still  tired  from  the  job. 
It's  in  my  bones." 

She  rested  at  home.  She  listened  to  the  village  noises  com 
mon  to  all  the  world,  jungle  or  prairie;  sounds  simple  and 
charged  with  magic — -dogs  barking,  chickens  making  a  gur 
gling  sound  of  content,  children  at  play,  a  man  beating  a  rug, 
wind  in  the  cottonwood  trees,  a  locust  fiddling,  a  footstep  on 
the  walk,  jaunty  voices  of  Bea  and  a  grocer's  boy  in  the 
kitchen,  a  clinking  anvil,  a  piano — not  too  near. 

Twice  a  week,  at  least,  she  drove  into  the  country  with 
Kennicott,  to  hunt  ducks  in  lakes  enameled  with  sunset,  or  to 
call  on  patients  who  looked  up  to  her  as  the  squire's  lady  and 
thanked  her  for  toys  and  magazines.  Evenings  she  went  with 
her  husband  to  the  motion  pictures  and  was  boisterously  greeted 
by  every  other  couple;  or,  till  it  became  too  cold,  they  sat  on 
the  porch,  bawling  to  passers-by  in  motors,  or  to  neighbors  who 
were  raking  the  leaves.  The  dust  became  golden  in  the  low 
sun;  the  street  was  filled  with  the  fragrance  of  burning  leaves. 


But  she  hazily  wanted  some  one  to  whom  she  could  say 
she  thought. 


j4  MAIN   STREET 

On  a  slow  afternoon  when  she  fidgeted  over  sewing  and 
wished  that  the  telephone  would  ring,  Bea  announced  Miss 
Vida  Sherwin. 

Despite  Vida  Sherwin's  lively  blue  eyes,  if  you  had  looked 
at  her  in  detail  you  would  have  found  her  face  slightly  lined, 
and  not  so  much  sallow  as  with  the  bloom  rubbed  off;  you 
would  have  found  her  chest  flat,  and  her  fingers  rough  from 
needle  and  chalk  and  penholder;  her  blouses  and  plain  cloth 
skirts  undistinguished;  and  her  hat  worn  too  far  back,  be 
traying  a  dry  forehead.  But  you  never  did  look  at  Vida 
Sherwin  in  detail.  You  couldn't.  Her  electric  activity  veiled 
her.  She  was  as  energetic  as  a  chipmunk.  Her  fingers 
fluttered;  her  sympathy  came  out  in  spurts;  she  sat  on  the 
edge  of  a  chair  in  eagerness  to  be  near  her  auditor,  to  send 
her  enthusiasms  and  optimism  across. 

She  rushed  into  the  room  pouring  out:  "  I'm  afraid  you'll 
think  the  teachers  have  been  shabby  in  not  coming  near  you, 
but  we  wanted  to  give  you  a  chance  to  get  settled.  I  am 
Vida  Sherwin,  and  I  try  to  teach  French  and  English  and  a 
few  other  things  in  the  high  school." 

"I've  been  hoping  to  know  the  teachers.  You  see,  I  was 
a  librarian " 

"  Oh,  you  needn't  tell  me.  I  know  all  about  you!  Awful 
how  much  I  know — this  gossipy  village.  We  need  you  so 
much  here.  It's  a  dear  loyal  town  (and  isn't  loyalty  the  finest 
thing  in  the  world!)  but  it's  a  rough  diamond,  and  we  need 

you  for  the  polishing,  and  we're  ever  so  humble "  She 

stopped  for  breath  and  finished  her  compliment  with  a  smile. 

"  If  I  could  help  you  in  any  way Would  I  be  commit 
ting  the  unpardonable  sin  if  I  whispered  that  I  think  Gopher 
Prairie  is  a  tiny  bit  ugly?  " 

"  Of  course  it's  ugly.  Dreadfully!  Though  I'm  probably 
the  only  person  in  town  to  whom  you  could  safely  say  that. 
(Except  perhaps  Guy  Pollock  the  lawyer — have  you  met  him? 
— oh,  you  must! — he's  simply  a  darling — intelligence  and  cul 
ture  and  so  gentle.)  But  I  don't  care  so  much  about  the 
ugliness.  That  will  change.  It's  the  spirit  that  gives  me 
hope.  It's  sound.  Wholesome.  But  afraid.  It  needs  live 
creatures  like  you  to  awaken  it.  I  shall  slave-drive  you!  " 

"  Splendid.  What  shall  I  do?  I've  been  wondering  if  it 
would  be  possible  to  have  a  good  architect  come  here  to 
*  -ture." 


MAIN   STREET  65 

ftYe-es,  but  don't  you  think  it  would  be  better  to  work 
with  existing  agencies?  Perhaps  it  will  sound  slow  to  you,  but 

I  was  thinking It  would  be  lovely  if  we  could  get  you  to 

teach  Sunday  School." 

Carol  had  the  empty  expression  of  one  who  finds  that  she 
Jhas  been  affectionately  bowing  to  a  complete  stranger.  "  Oh 
yes.  But  I'm  afraid  I  wouldn't  be  much  good  at  that.  My 
religion  is  so  foggy." 

"  I  know.  So  is  mine.  I  don't  care  a  bit  for  dogma. 
Though  I  do  stick  firmly  to  the  belief  in  the  fatherhood  of 
God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man  and  the  leadership  of  Jes.us. 
As  you  do,  of  course." 

Carol  looked  respectable  and  thought  about  having  tea. 

"  And  that's  all  you  need  teach  in  Sunday  School.  It's 
the  personal  influence.  Then  there's  the  library-board.  You'd 
be  so  useful  on  that.  And  of  course  there's  our  women's 
study  club — the  Thanatopsis  Club." 

"  Are  they  doing  anything?  Or  do  they  read  papers  made 
out  of  the  Encyclopedia?  " 

Miss  Sherwin  shrugged.  "Perhaps.  But  still,  they  are  so 
earnest.  They  will  respond  to  your  fresher  interest.  And 
the  Thanatopsis  does  do  a  good  social  work — they've  made 
the  city  plant  ever  so  many  trees,  and  they  run  the  rest-room 
for  farmers'  wives.  And  they  do  take  such  an  interest  in 
refinement  and  culture.  So — in  fact,  so  very  unique." 

Carol  was  disappointed — by  nothing  very  tangible.  She 
said  politely,  "  I'll  think  them  all  over.  I  must  have  a  while 
to  look  around  first." 

Miss  Sherwin  darted  to  her,  smoothed  her  hair,  peered  at 
her.  "  Oh,  my  dear,  don't  you  suppose  I  know?  These  first 
tender  days  of  marriage — they're  sacred  to  me.  Home,  and 
children  that  need  you,  and  depend  on  you  to  keep  them  alive, 
and  turn  to  you  with  their  wrinkly  little  smiles.  And  the 

hearth  and "    She  hid  her  face  from  Carol  as  she  made  an 

activity  of  patting  the  cushion  of  her  chair,  but  she  went  on 
with  her  former  briskness: 

"  I  mean,  you  must  help  us  when  you're  ready.  . 
I'm  afraid  you'll  think  I'm  conservative.  I  am!  So  much 
to  conserve.  All  this  treasure  of  American  ideals.  Sturdiness 
and  democracy  and  opportunity.  Maybe  not  at  Palm  Beach. 
But,  thank  heaven,  we're  free  from  such  social  distinctions  in 
Gopher  Prairie.  I  have  only  one  good  quality — overwhelming 


So  MAIN   STREET 

belief  in  the  brains  and  hearts  of  our  nation,  our  state,  our 
town.  It's  so  strong  that  sometimes  I  do  have  a  tiny  effect 
on  the  haughty  ten-thousandaires.  I  shake  'em  up  and  make 
'em  believe  in  ideals — yes,  in  themselves.  But  I  get  into  a 
rut  of  teaching.  I  need  young  critical  things  like  you  to 
punch  me  up.  Tell  me,  what  are  you  reading?  " 

"  I've  been  re-reading  '  The  Damnation  of  Theron  Ware.' 
Do  you  know  it?  " 

"  Yes.  It  was  clever.  But  hard.  Man  wanted  to  tear 
down,  not  build  up.  Cynical.  Oh,  I  do  hope  I'm  not  a 
sentimentalist.  But  I  can't  see  any  use  in  this  high-art  stuff 
that  doesn't  encourage  us  day-laborers  to  plod  on." 

Ensued  a  fifteen-minute  argument  about  the  oldest  topic 
in  the  world:  It's  art  but  is  it  pretty?  Carol  tried  to  be 
eloquent  regarding  honesty  of  observation.  Miss  Sherwin  stood 
out  for  sweetness  and  a  cautious  use  of  the  uncomfortable 
properties  of  light.  At  the  end  Carol  cried: 

"  I  don't  care  how  much  we  disagree.  It's  a  relief  to  have 
somebody  talk  something  besides  crops.  Let's  make  Gopher 
Prairie  rock  to  its  foundations:  let's  have  afternoon  tea  in 
stead  of  afternoon  coffee." 

The  delighted  Bea  helped  her  bring  out  the  ancestral  folding 
sewing-table,  whose  yellow  and  black  top  was  scarred  with 
dotted  lines  from  a  dressmaker's  tracing- wheel,  and  to  set  it 
with  an  embroidered  lunch-cloth,  and  the  mauve-glazed  Japa 
nese  tea-set  which  she  had  brought  from  St.  Paul.  Miss 
Sherwin  confided  her  latest  scheme — moral  motion  pictures  for 
country  districts,  with  light  from  a  portable  dynamo  hitched 
to  a  Ford  engine.  Bea  was  twice  called  to  fill  the  hot-water 
pitcher  and  to  make  cinnamon  toast. 

When  Kennicott  came  home  at  five  he  tried  to  be  courtly, 
as  befits  the  husband  of  one  who  has  afternoon  tea.  Carol 
suggested  that  Miss  Sherwin  stay  for  supper,  and  that  Kenni 
cott  invite  Guy  Pollock,  the  much-praised  lawyer,  the  poetic 
bachelor. 

Yes,  Pollock  could  come.  Yes,  he  was  over  the  grippe  which 
had  prevented  his  going  to  Sam  Clark's  party. 
•  Carol  regretted  her  impulse.  The  man  would  be  an  opinion 
ated  politician,  heavily  jocular  about  The  Bride.  But  at  the 
entrance  of  Guy  Pollock  she  discovered  a  personality.  Pollock 
was  a  man  of  perhaps  thirty-eight,  slender,  still,  deferential. 
His  voice  was  low.  "  It  was  very  good  of  you  to  want  me/* 


MAIN   STREET  67 

he  said,  and  he  offered  no  humorous  remarks,  and  did  not 
ask  her  if  she  didn't  think  Gopher  Prairie  was  "  the  livest  little 
burg  in  the  state." 

She  fancied  that  his  even  grayness  might  reveal  a  thousand 
tints  of  lavender  and  blue  and  silver. 

At  supper  he  hinted  his  love  for  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
Thoreau,  Agnes  Repplier,  Arthur  Symons,  Claude  Washburn, 
Charles  Flandrau.  He  presented  his  idols  diffidently,  but  he 
expanded  in  Carol's  bookishness,  in  Miss  Sherwin's  voluminous 
praise,  in  Kennicott's  tolerance  of  any  one  who  amused  his 
wife. 

Carol  wondered  why  Guy  Pollock  went  on  digging  at  routine 
law-cases;  why  he  remained  in  Gopher  Prairie.  She  had  no 
one  whom  she  could  ask.  Neither  Kennicott  nor  Vida  Sherwin 
would  understand  that  there  might  be  reasons  why  a  Pollock 
should  not  remain  in  Gopher  Prairie.  She  enjoyed  the  faint 
mystery.  She  felt  triumphant  and  rather  literary.  She  already 
had  a  Group.  It  would  be  only  a  while  now  before  she  pro 
vided  tlje  town  with  fanlights  and  a  knowledge  of  Gals 
worthy.  She  was  doing  things!  As  she  served  the  emergency 
dessert  of  cocoanut  and  sliced  oranges,  she  cried  to  Pollock, 
w  Don't  you  think  we  ought  to  get  up  a  dramatic  club?  " 


CHAPTER  VI 


WHEN  the  first  dubious  November  snow  had  filtered  down, 
shading  with  white  the  bare  clods  in  the  plowed  fields,  when 
the  first  small  fire  had  been  started  in  the  furnace,  which 
is  the  shrine  of  a  Gopher  Prairie  home,  Carol  began  to  make 
the  house  her  own.  She  dismissed  the  parlor  furniture — the 
golden  oak  table  with  brass  knobs,  the  moldy  brocade  chairs, 
the  picture  of  "  The  Doctor."  She  went  to  Minneapolis,  to 
scamper  through  department  stores  and  small  Tenth  Street 
shops  devoted  to  ceramics  and  high  thought.  She  had  to  ship 
her  treasures,  but  she  wanted  to  bring  them  back  in  her  arms. 

Carpenters  had  torn  out  the  partition  between  front  parlor 
and  back  parlor,  thrown  it  into  a  long  room  on  which  she 
lavished  yellow  and  deep  blue;  a  Japanese  obi  with  an  in 
tricacy  of  gold  thread  on  stiff  ultramarine  tissue,  which  she 
hung  as  a  panel  against  the  maize  wall ;  a  couch  with  pillows  of 
sapphire  velvet  and  gold  bands ;  chairs  which,  in  Gopher  Prairie, 
seemed  flippant.  She  hid  the  sacred  family  phonograph  in  the 
dining-room,  and  replaced  its  stand  with  a  square  cabinet  on 
which  was  a  squat  blue  jar  between  yellow  candles. 

Kennicott  decided  against  a  fireplace.  "  We'll  have  a  new 
house  in  a  couple  of  years,  anyway." 

She  decorated  only  one  room.  The  rest,  Kennicott  hinted, 
She'd  better  leave  till  he  "  made  a  ten-strike." 

The  brown  cube  of  a  house  stirred  and  awakened ;  it  seemed 
to  be  in  motion;  it  welcomed  her  back  from  shopping;  it  lost 
its  mildewed  repression. 

The  supreme  verdict  was  Kennicott's  "Well,  by  golly,  1 
was  afraid  the  new  junk  wouldn't  be  so  comfortable,  but  I 
must  say  this  divan,  or  whatever  you  call  it,  is  a  lot  better 

than  that  bumpy  old  sofa  we  had,  and  when  I  look  around 

Well,  it's  worth  all  it  cost,  I  guess." 

Every  one  in  town  took  an  interest  in  the  refurnishing.  The 
carpenters  and  painters  who  did  not  actually  assist  crossed 
the  lawn  to  peer  through  the  windows  and  exclaim,  "  Finel 

68 


MAIN   STREET  69 

Looks  swell!  "  Dave  Dyer  at  the  drug  store,  Harry  Haydock 
and  Raymie  Wutherspoon  at  the  Bon  Ton,  repeated  daily, 
"  How's  the  good  work  coming?  I  hear  the  house  is  getting 
to  be  real  classy." 

Even  Mrs.  Bogart. 

Mrs.  Bogart  lived  across  the  alley  from  the  rear  of  Carol's 
house.  She  was  a  widow,  and  a  Prominent  Baptist,  and  a 
Good  Influence.  She  had  so  painfully  reared  three  sons  to 
be  Christian  gentlemen  that  one  of  them  had  become  an  Omaha 
bartender,  one  a  professor  of  Greek,  and  one,  Cyrus  N. 
Bogart,  a  boy  of  fourteen  who  was  still  at  home,  the  most 
_brazen  member  of  the  toughest  gang  in  Boytown. 
^  Mrs.  Bogart  was  not  the  acid  type  of  Good  Influence.  She 
was  the  soft,  damp,  fat,  sighing,  indigestive,  clinging,  melan 
choly,  depressingly  hopeful  kind.  There  are  in  every  large 
chicken-yard  a  number  of  old  and  indignant  hens  who  resemble 
Mrs.  Bogart,  and  when  they  are  served  at  Sunday  noon 
dinner,  as  fricasseed  chicken  with  thick  dumplings,  they  keep 
up  the  resemblance. 

Carol  had  noted  that  Mrs.  Bogart  from  her  side  window 
kept  an  eye  upon  the  house.  The  Kennicotts  and  Mrs.  Bogart 
did  not  move  in  the  same  sets — which  meant  precisely  the  same 
in  Gopher  Prairie  as  it  did  on  Fifth  Avenue  or  in  Mayfair. 
But  the  good  widow  came  calling. 

She  wheezed  in,  sighed,  gave  Carol  a  pulpy  hand,  sighed, 
glanced  sharply  at  the  revelation  of  ankles  as  Carol  crossed 
her  legs,  sighed,  inspected  the  new  blue  chairs,  smiled  with  a 
coy  sighing  sound,  and  gave  voice: 

"  I've  wanted  to  call  on  you  so  long,  dearie,  you  know  we're 
neighbors,  but  I  thought  I'd  wait  till  you  got  settled,  you  must 
run  in  and  see  me,  how  much  did  that  big  chair  cost?  " 

"  Seventy-seven  dollars!  " 

"Sev Sakes  alive!  Well,  I  suppose  it's  all  right  for  them 

that  can  afford  it,  though  I  do  sometimes  think Of  course 

as  our  pastor  said  once,  at  Baptist  Church By  the  way,  we 

haven't  seen  you  there  yet,  and  of  course  your  husband  was 
raised  up  a  Baptist,  and  I  do  hope  he  won't  drift  away  from 
the  fold,  of  course  we  all  know  there  isn't  anything,  not  clever 
ness  or  gifts  of  gold  or  anything,  that  can  make  up  for  humility 
and  the  inward  grace  and  they  can  say  what  they  want  to  about 
the  P.  E.  church,  but  of  course  there's  no  church  that  has  more 
history  or  has  stayed  by  the  true  principles  of  Christianity 


70  MAIN   STREET 

better  than  the  Baptist  Church  and In  what  church  were 

you  raised,  Mrs.  Kennicott?  " 

"  W-why,  I  went  to  Congregational,  as  a  girl  in  Mankato, 
but  my  college  was  Universalist." 

«  Well But  of  course  as  the  Bible  says,  is  it  the  Bible, 

at  least  I  know  I  have  heard  it  in  church  and  everybody  admits 
it,  it's  proper  for  the  little  bride  to  take  her  husband's  vessel 
of  faith,  so  we  all  hope  we  shall  see  you  at  the  Baptist  Church 

and As  I  was  saying,  of  course  I  agree  with  Reverend 

Zitterel  in  thinkjng  that  the  great  trouble  with  this  nation 
today  is  lack  of  spiritual  faith — so  few  going  to  church,  and 
people  automobiling  on  Sunday  and  heaven  knows  what  all. 
But  still  I  do  think  that  one  trouble  is  this  terrible  waste  of 
money,  people  feeling  that  they've  got  to  have  bath-tubs  and 

telephones  in  their  houses I  heard  you  were  selling  the 

old  furniture  cheap." 

"Yes!"  «*- 

"Well — or  course  you  know  your  own  mind,  but  I  can't 
help  thinking,  when  Will's  ma  was  down  here  keeping  house 
for  him — she  used  to  run  in  to  see  me,  real  often/ — it  was  good 
enough  furniture  for  her.  But  there,  there,  I  mustn't  croak, 
I  just  wanted  to  let  you  know  that  when  you  find  you  can't  de 
pend  on  a  lot  of  these  gadding  young  folks  like  the  Haydocks 
and  the  Dyers — and  heaven  only  knows  how  much  money 
Juanita  Haydock  blows  in  in  a  year — why  then  you  may  be 
glad  to  know  that  slow  old  Aunty  Bogart  is  always  right  there, 

and  heaven  knows "  A  portentous  sigh.  " — I  hope  you  and 

your  husband  won't  have  any  of  the  troubles,  with  sickness  and 
quarreling  and  wasting  money"  and  all  that  so  many  of  these 

young  couples  do  have  and But  I  must  be  running  along 

now,  dearie.  It's  been  such  a  pleasure  and Just  run  in 

and  see  me  any  time.  I  hope  Will  is  well?  I  thought  he 
looked  a  wee  mite  peaked." 

It  was  twenty  minutes  later  when  Mrs.  Bogart  finally  oozed 
out  of  the  front  door.  Carol  ran  back  into  the  living-room 
and  jerked  open  the  windows.  "  That  woman  has  left  damp 
finger-prints  in  the  air,"  she  said 


MAIN    STREET  71 

n 

Carol  was  extravagant,  but  at  least  she  did  not  try  to  clear 
herself  of  blame  by  going  about  whimpering,  "  I  know  I'm 
terribly  extravagant  but  I  don't  seem  to  be  able  to  help  it." 

Kennicott  had  never  thought  of  giving  her  an  allowance. 
His  mother  had  never  had  one!  As  a  wage-earning  spinster 
Carol  had  asserted  to  her  fellow  librarians  that  when  she  was 
married,  she  was  going  to  have  an  allowance  and  be  business 
like  and  modern.  But  it  was  too  much  trouble  to  explain  to 
Kennicott's  kindly  stubbornness  that  she  was  a  practical  house 
keeper  as  well  as  a  flighty  playmate.  She  bought  a  budget- 
plan  account  book  and  made  her  budgets  as  exact  as  budgets 
are  likely  to  be  when  they  lack  budgets. 

For  the  first  month  it  was  a  honeymoon  jest  to  beg  prettily, 
to  confess,  "  I  haven't  a  cent  in  the  house,  dear,"  and  to  be 
told,  "  You're  an  extravagant  little  rabbit."  But  the  budget 
book  made  her  realize  how  inexact  were  her  finances.  She 
became  self-conscious;  occasionally  she  was  indignant  that  she 
should  always  have  to  petition  him  for  the  money  with  which 
to  buy  his  food.  She  caught  herself  criticizing  his  belief  that, 
since  his  joke  about  trying  to  keep  her  out  of  the  poorhouse 
had  once  been  accepted  as  admirable  humor,  it  should  continue 
to  be  his  daily  bon  mot.  It  was  a  nuisance  to  have  to  run 
down  the  street  after  him  because  she  had  forgotten  to  ask 
him  for  money  at  breakfast. 

But  she  couldn't  "hurt  his  feelings,"  she  reflected.  He 
liked  the  lordliness  of  giving  largess. 

She  tried  to  reduce  the  frequency  of  begging  by  opening 
accounts  and  having  the  bills  sent  to  him.  She  had  found  that 
staple  groceries,  sugar,  flout,  could  be  most  cheaply  purchased 
at  Axel  Egge's  rustic  general  store.  She  said  sweetly  to  Axel: 

"  I  think  I'd  better  open  a  charge  account  here." 

"I  don't  do  no  business  except  for  cash,"  grunted  Axel. 

She  flared,  "  Do  you  know  who  I  am?  " 

"Yuh,  sure,  I  know.  The  doc  is  good  for  it.  But  that's 
yoost  a  rule  I  made.  I  make  low  prices.  I  do  business  for 
cash." 

She  stared  at  his  red  impassive  face,  and  her  fingers  had 
the  undignified  desire  to  slap  him,  but  her  reason  agreed  with 
him.  "You're  quite  right.  You  shouldn't  break  your  nil* 
for  me." 


72  MAIN   STREET 

Her  rage  had  not  been  lost.  It  had  been  transferred  to 
her  husband.  She  wanted  ten  pounds  of  sugar  in  a  hurry,  but 
she  had  no  money.  She  ran  up  the  stairs  to  Kennicott's  office. 
On  the  door  was  a  sign  advertising  a  headache  cure  and 

stating,  "  The  doctor  is  out,  back  at "  Naturally,  the  blank 

space  was  not  filled  out.  She  stamped  her  foot.  She  ran 
down  to  the  drug  store — the  doctor's  club. 

As  she  entered  she  heard  Mrs.  Dyer  demanding,  "  Dave, 
I've  got  to  have  some  money." 

Carol  saw  that  her  husband  was  there,  and  two  other  men, 
all  listening  in  amusement. 

Dave  Dyer  snapped,  "  How  much  do  you  want?  Dollar  be 
enough?  " 

"  No,  it  won't!  I've  got  to  get  some  underclothes  for  the 
kids/' 

"  Why,  good  Lord,  they  got  enough  now  to  fill  the  closet 
so  I  couldn't  find  my  hunting  boots,  last  time  I  wanted  them." 

"  I  don't  care.  They're  all  in  rags.  You  got  to  give  me 
ten  dollars " 

Carol  perceived  that  Mrs.  Dyer  was  accustomed  to  this  in 
dignity.  She  perceived  that  the  men,  particularly  Dave,  re 
garded  it  as  an  excellent  jest.  She  waited — she  knew  what 
would  come — it  did.  Dave  yelped,  "  Where's  that  ten  dollars 
I  gave  you  last  year?  "  and  he  looked  to  the  other  men  to 
laugh.  They  laughed. 

Cold  and  still,  Carol  walked  up  to  Kennicott  and  com 
manded,  "  I  want  to  see  you  upstairs." 

"  Why — something  the  matter?  " 

"  Yes!  " 

He  clumped  after  her,  up  the  stairs,  into  his  barren  office. 
Before  he  could  get  out  a  query  she  stated: 

"  Yesterday,  in  front  of  a  saloon,  I  heard  a  German  farm- 
wife  beg  her  husband  for  a  quarter,  to  get  a  toy  for  the  baby — 
and  he  refused.  Just  now  I've  heard  Mrs.  Dyer  going  through 
the  same  humiliation.  And  I — I'm  in  the  same  position!  I 
have  to  beg  you  for  money.  Daily!  I  have  just  been  informed 
that  I  couldn't  have  any  sugar  because  I  hadn't  the  money 
to  pay  for  it!  " 

"  Who  said  that?    By  God,  I'll  kill  any " 

"  Tut.  It  wasn't  his  fault.  It  was  yours.  And  mine.  I  now 
humbly  beg  you  to  give  me  the  money  with  which  to  buy  meals 
for  you  to  eat.  And  hereafter  to  remember  it.  The  next  time, 


MAIN    STREET  73 

I  sha'n't  beg.  I  shall  simply  starve.  Do  you  understand? 
I  can't  go  on  being  a  slave " 

Her  defiance,  her  enjoyment  of  the  role,  ran  out.  She 
was  sobbing  against  his  overcoat,  "  How  can  you  shame  me 
so?  "  and  he  was  blubbering,  "  Dog-gone  it,  I  meant  to  give 
you  some,  and  I  forgot  it.  I  swear  I  won't  again.  By  golly 
I  won't!  " 

He  pressed  fifty  dollars  upon  her,  and  after  that  he  re 
membered  to  give  her  money  regularly.  .  .  .  sometimes. 

Daily  she  determined,  "  But  I  must  have  a  stated  amount — 
be  business-like.  System.  I  must  do  something  about  it." 
And  daily  she  didn't  do  anything  about  it. 


in 

Mrs.  Bogart  had,  by  the  simpering  viciousness  of  her  com 
ments  on  the  new  furniture,  stirred  Carol  to  economy.  She 
spoke  judiciously  to  Bea  about  left-overs.  She  read  the  cook 
book  again  and,  like  a  child  with  a  picture-book,  she  studied 
the  diagram  of  the  beef  which  gallantly  continues  to  browse 
though  it  is  divided  into  cuts. 

But  she  was  a  deliberate  and  joyous  spendthrift  in  her 
preparations  for  her  first  party,  the  housewarming.  She  made 
lists  on  every  envelope  and  laundry-slip  in  her  desk.  She 
sent  orders  to  Minneapolis  "  fancy  grocers."  She  pinned  pat 
terns  and  sewed.  She  was  irritated  when  Kennicott  was 
jocular  about  "  these  frightful  big  doings  that  are  going  on." 
She  regarded  the  affair  as  an  attack  on  Gopher  Prairie's  timid 
ity  in  pleasure.  "  I'll  make  'em  lively,  if  nothing  else.  I'll 
make  'em  stop  regarding  parties  as  committee-meetings." 

Kennicott  usually  considered  himself  the  master  of  the 
house.  At  his  desire,  she  went  hunting,  which  was  his  symbol 
of  happiness,  and  she  ordered  porridge  for  breakfast,  which 
was  his  symbol  of  morality.  But  when  he  came  home  on  the 
afternoon  before  the  housewarming  he  found  himself  a  slave, 
an  intruder,  a  blunderer.  Carol  wailed,  "  Fix  the  furnace  so 
you  won't  have  to  touch  it  after  supper.  And  for  heaven's  sake 
take  that  horrible  old  door-mat  off  the  porch.  And  put  on  your 
nice  brown  and  white  shirt.  Why  did  you  come  home  so 
late?  Would  you  mind  hurrying?  Here  it  is  almost  supper^ 
time,  and  those  fiends  are  just  as  likely  as  not  to  come  at 
seven  instead  of  eight.  Please  hurry!  " 


74  MAIN    STREET 

She  was  as  unreasonable  as  an  amateur  leading  woman  on 
a  first  night,  and  he  was  reduced  to  humility.  When  she  came 
down  to  supper,  when  she  stood  in  the  doorway,  he  gasped. 
She  was  in  a  silver  sheath,  the  calyx  of  a  lily,  her  piled  hair 
like  black  glass;  she  had  the  fragility  and  costliness  of  a 
Viennese  goblet;  and  her  eyes  were  intense.  He  was  stirred 
to  rise  from  the  table  and  to  hold  the  chair  for  her;  and  all 
through  supper  he  ate  his  bread  dry  because  he  felt  that  she 
would  think  him  common  if  he  said  "  Will  you  hand  me  the 
butter?  " 

IV 

She  had  reached  the  calmness  of  not  caring  whether  her 
guests  liked  the  party  or  not,  and  a  state  of  satisfied  suspense 
in  regard  to  Bea's  technique  in  serving,  before  Kennicott  cried 
from  the  bay-window  in  the  living-room,  "  Here  comes  some 
body!  "  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Luke  Dawson  faltered  in,  at  a 
quarter  to  eight.  Then  in  a  shy  avalanche  arrived  the  entire 
aristocracy  of  Gopher  Prairie:  all  persons  engaged  in  a  pro 
fession,  or  earning  more  than  twenty-five  hundred  dollars  a 
year,  or  possessed  of  grandparents  born  in  America. 

Even  while  they  were  removing  their  overshoes  they  were 
peeping  at  the  new  decorations.  Carol  saw  Dave  Dyer  se 
cretively  turn  over  the  gold  pillows  to  find  a  price-tag,  and 
heard  Mr.  Julius  Flickerbaugh,  the  attorney,  gasp,  "  Well,  I'll 
be  switched,"  as  he  viewed  the  vermilion  print  hanging  against 
the  Japanese  obi.  She  was  amused.  But  her  high  spirits  slack 
ened  as  she  beheld  them  form  in  dress  parade,  in  a  long,  silent, 
uneasy  circle  clear  round  the  living-room.  She  felt  that  she 
had  been  magically  whisked  back  to  her  first  party,  at  Sam 
Clark's. 

"  Have  I  got  to  lift  them,  like  so  many  pigs  of  iron?  I 
don't  know  that  I  can  make  them  happy,  but  I'll  make  them 
hectic." 

A  silver  flame  in  the  darkling  circle,  she  whirled  around,  drew 
them  with  her  smile,  and  sang,  "  I  want  my  party  to  be  noisy 
and  undignified!  This  is  the  christening  of  my  house,  and 
I  want  you  to  help  me  have  a  bad  influence  on  it,  so  that 
it  will  be  a  giddy  house.  For  me,  won't  you  all  join  in  an 
old-fashioned  square  dance?  And  Mr.  Dyer  will  call." 

She  had  a  record  on  the  phonograph ;  Dave  Dyer  was  caper 
ing  in  the  center  of  the  floor,  loose-jointed,  lean,  small,  rusty- 


MAIN    STREET  75 

headed,  pointed  of  nose,  clapping  his  hands  and  shouting, 
"Swing  y'  pardners — alamun  lef!  " 

Even  the  millionaire  Dawsons  and  Ezra  Stowbody  and 
"  Professor  "  George  Edwin  Mott  danced,  looking  only  slightly 
foolish ;  and  by  rushing  about  the  room  and  being  coy  and  coax 
ing  to  all  persons  over  forty-five,  Carol  got  them  into  a  waltz 
and  a  Virginia  Reel.  But  when  she  left  them  to  disenjoy  them 
selves  in  their  own  way  Harry  Haydock  put  a  one-step  record 
on  the  phonograph,  the  younger  people  took  the  floor,  and 
all  the  elders  sneaked  back  to  their  chairs,  with  crystallized 
smiles  which  meant,  "  Don't  believe  I'll  try  this  one  myself, 
but  I  do  enjoy  watching  the  youngsters  dance." 

Half  of  them  were  silent;  half  resumed  the  discussions  of 
that  afternoon  in  the  store.  Ezra  Stowbody  hunted  for  some 
thing  to  say,  hid  a  yawn,  and  offered  to  Lyman  Cass,  the 
owner  of  the  flour-mill,  "  How  d'  you  folks  like  the  new  fur 
nace,  Lym?  Huh?  So." 

"  Oh,  let  them  alone.  Don't  pester  them.  They  must  like 
it,  or  they  wouldn't  do  it."  Carol  warned  herself.  But  they 
gazed  at  her  so  expectantly  when  she  flickered  past  that  she 
was  reconvinced  that  in  their  debauches  of  respectability  they 
had  lost  the  power  of  play  as  well  as  the  power  of  impersonal 
thought.  Even  the  dancers  were  gradually  crushed  by  the 
invisible  force  of  fifty  perfectly  pure  and  well-behaved  and 
negative  minds;  and  they  sat  down,  two  by  two.  In  twenty 
minutes  the  party  was  again  elevated  to  the  decorum  of  a 
prayer-meeting. 

"We're  going  to  do  something  exciting,"  Carol  exclaimed 
to  her  new  confidante,  Vida  Sherwin.  She  saw  that  in  the 
growing  quiet  her  voice  had  carried  across  the  room.  Nat 
Hicks,  Ella  Stowbody,  and  Dave  Dyer  were  abstracted,  fingers 
and  lips  slightly  moving.  She  knew  with  a  cold  certainty  that 
Dave  was  reheasing  his  "  stunt "  about  the  Norwegian  catching 
the  hen,  Ella  running  over  the  first  lines  of  "  An  Old  Sweetheart 
of  Mine,"  and  Nat  thinking  of  his  popular  parody  on  Mark 
Antony's  oration. 

"  But  I  will  not  have  anybody  use  the  word  '  stunt '  in  my 
house,"  she  whispered  to  Miss  Sherwin. 

"  That's  good.  I  tell  you:  why  not  have  Raymond  Wuther- 
spoon  sing?  " 

"  Raymie?  Why,  my  dear,  he's  the  most  sentimental  yearner 
IB  town!  " 


76  MAIN    STREET 

"  See  here,  child !  Your  opinions  on  house-decorating  are 
sound,  but  your  opinions  of  people  are  rotten!  Raymie  does 

wag  his  tail.     But  the  poor  dear Longing  for  what  he 

calls  '  self-expression  '  and  no  training  in  anything  except  selling 
shoes.  But  he  can  sing.  And  some  day  when  he  gets  away 
from  Harry  Haydock's  patronage  and  ridicule,  he'll  do  some 
thing  fine." 

Carol  apologized  for  her  superciliousness.  She  urged 
Raymie,  and  warned  the  planners  of  "  stunts,"  "  We  all  want 
you  to  sing,  Mr.  Wutherspoon.  You're  the  only  famous  actor 
I'm  going  to  let  appear  on  the  stage  tonight." 

While  Raymie  blushed  and  admitted,  "  Oh,  they  don't  want 
to  hear  me,"  he  was  clearing  his  throat,  pulling  his  clean  hand 
kerchief  farther  out  of  his  breast  pocket,  and  thrusting  his 
fingers  between  the  buttons  of  his  vest. 

In  her  affection  for  Raymie's  defender,  in  her  desire  to  "  dis 
cover  artistic  talent,"  Carol  prepared  to  be  delighted  by  the 
recital. 

Raymie  sang  "  Fly  as  a  Bird,"  "  Thou  Art  My  Dove,"  and 
"  When  the  Little  Swallow  Leaves  Its  Tiny  Nest,"  all  in  a 
reasonably  bad  offertory  tenor. 

Carol  was  shuddering  with  the  vicarious  shame  which  sen 
sitive  people  feel  when  they  listen  to  an  "  elocutionist "  being 
humorous,  or  to  a  precocious  child  publicly  doing  badly  what 
no  child  should  do  at  all.  She  wanted  to  laugh  at  the  gratified 
importance  in  Raymie's  half-shut  eyes;  she  wanted  to  weep 
over  the  meek  ambitiousness  which  clouded  like  an  aura  his 
pale  face,  flap  ears,  and  sandy  pompadour.  She  tried  to  look 
admiring,  for  the  benefit  of  Miss  Sherwin,  that  trusting  ad 
mirer  of  all  that  was  or  conceivably  could  be  the  good,  the 
true,  and  the  beautiful. 

At  the  end  of  the  third  ornithological  lyric  Miss  Sherwin 
roused  from  her  attitude  of  inspired  vision  and  breathed  to 
Carol,  "  My!  That  was  sweet!  Of  course  Raymond  hasn't 
an  unusually  good  voice,  but  don't  you  think  he  puts  such 
a  lot  of  feeling  into  it?  " 

Carol  lied  blackly  and  magnificently,  but  without  originality: 
w  Oh  yes,  I  do  think  he  has  so  much  feeling! " 

She  saw  that  after  the  strain  of  listening  in  a  cultured  man 
ner  the  audience  had  collapsed;  had  given  up  their  last  hop* 
of  being  amused.  She  cried,  "  Now  we're  going  to  play  an 
idiotic  game  which  I  learned  in  Chicago.  You  wilJ  have  to 


MAIN    STREET  77 

take  off  your  shoes,  for  a  starter!    After  that  you  will  probably 
break  your  knees  and  shoulder-blades." 

Much  attention  and  incredulity.  A  few  eyebrows  indicating 
a  verdict  that  Doc  Kennicott's  bride  was  noisy  and  im 
proper. 

"  I  shall  choose  the  most  vicious,  like  Juanita  Haydock  and 
myself,  as  the  shepherds.  The  rest  of  you  are  wolves.  Your 
shoes  are  the  sheep.  The  wolves  go  out  into  the  hall.  The 
shepherds  scatter  the  sheep  through  this  room,  then  turn  off 
all  the  lights,  and  the  wolves  crawl  in  from  the  hall  and  in  the 
darkness  they  try  to  get  the  shoes  away  from  the  shepherds — 
who  are  permitted  to  do  anything  except  bite  and  use  black 
jacks.  The  wolves  chuck  the  captured  shoes  out  into  the  hall. 
No  one  excused!  Come  on!  Shoes  off!  " 

Every  one  looked  at  every  one  else  and  waited  for  every 
one  else  to  begin. 

Carol  kicked  off  her  silver  slippers,  and  ignored  the  universal 
glance  at  her  arches.  The  embarrassed  but  loyal  Vida  Sherwvn 
unbuttoned  her  high  black  shoes.  Ezra  Stowbody  cackled, 
"Well,  you're  a  terror  to  old  folks.  You're  like  the  gals  I 
used  to  go  horseback-riding  with,  back  in  the  sixties.  Ain't 
much  accustomed  to  attending  parties  barefoot,  but  here  goes!  " 
With  a  whoop  and  a  gallant  jerk  Ezra  snatched  off  his  elastic- 
sided  Congress  shoes. 

The  others  giggled  and  followed. 

When  the  sheep  had  been  penned  up,  in  the  darkness  the 
timorous  wolves  crept  into  the  living-room,  squealing,  halting, 
thrown  out  of  their  habit  of  stolidity  by  the  strangeness  of 
advancing  through  nothingness  toward  a  waiting  foe,  a  mys 
terious  foe  which  expanded  and  grew  more  menacing.  The 
wolves  peered  to  make  out  landmarks,  they  touched  gliding 
arms  which  did  not  seem  to  be  attached  to  a  body,  they 
quivered  with  a  rapture  of  fear.  Reality  had  vanished.  A 
yelping  squabble  suddenly  rose,  then  Juanita  Haydock's  high 
titter,  and  Guy  Pollock's  astonished,  "Ouch!  Quit!  You're 
scalping  me!  " 

Mrs.  Luke  Dawson  galloped  backward  on  stiff  hands  and 
knees  into  the  safety  of  the  lighted  hallway,  moaning,  "  I  de 
clare,  I  nev*  was  so  upset  in  my  life!  "  But  the  propriety  was 
shaken  out  of  her,  and  she  delightedly  continued  to  ejaculate 
"Nev'  in  my  life"  as  she  saw  the  living-room  door  opened 
by  invisible  hands  and  shoes  hurling  through  it,  as  she  heard 


;8  MAIN   STREET 

from  the  darkness  beyond  the  door  a  squawling,  a  bumping, 
a  resolute  "  Here's  a  lot  of  shoes.  Come  on,  you  wolves.  Ow! 
Y'  would,  would  you!  " 

When  Carol  abruptly  turned  on  the  lights  in  the  embattled 
living-room,  half  of  the  company  were  sitting  back  against  the 
walls,  where  they  had  craftily  remained  throughout  the  en 
gagement,  but  in  the  middle  of  the  floor  Kennicott  was  wrest 
ling  with  Harry  Hay  dock — their  collars  torn  off,  their  hair  in 
their  eyes;  and  the  owlish  Mr.  Julius  Flickerbaugh  was  re 
treating  from  Juanita  Haydock,  and  gulping  with  unaccustomed 
laughter.  Guy  Pollock's  discreet  brown  scarf  hung  down  his 
back.  Young  Rita  Simons's  net  blouse  had  lost  two  buttons, 
and  betrayed  more  of  her  delicious  plump  shoulder  than  was 
regarded  as  pure  in  Gopher  Prairie.  Whether  by  shock,  dis 
gust,  joy  of  combat,  or  physical  activity,  all  the  party  were 
freed  from  their  years  of  social  decorum.  George  Edwin  Mott 
giggled;  Luke  Dawson  twisted  his  beard;  Mrs.  Clark  insisted, 
"  I  did  too,  Sam — I  got  a  shoe — I  never  knew  I  could  fight 
so  terrible!  " 

Carol  was  certain  that  she  was  a  great  reformer. 

She  mercifully  had  combs,  mirrors,  brushes,  needle  and 
thread  ready.  She  permitted  them  to  restore  the  divine 
decency  of  buttons. 

The  grinning  Bea  brought  down-stairs  a  pile  of  soft  thick 
sheets  of  paper  with  designs  of  lotos  blossoms,  dragons,  apes, 
in  cobalt  and  crimson  and  gray,  and  patterns  of  purple 
birds  flying  among  sea-green  trees  in  the  valleys  of  Nowhere. 

"  These,"  Carol  announced,  "  are  real  Chinese  masquerade 
costumes.  I  got  them  from  an  importing  shop  in  Minneapolis. 
You  are  to  put  them  on  over  your  clothes,  and  please  forget 
that  you  are  Minnesotans,  and  turn  into  mandarins  and  coolies 
and — and  samurai  (isn't  it?),  and  anything  else  you  can  think 
of." 

While  they  were  shyly  rustling  the  paper  costumes  she  dis 
appeared.  Ten  minutes  after  she  gazed  down  from  the  stairs 
upon  grotesquely  ruddy  Yankee  heads  above  Oriental  robes, 
and  cried  to  them,  "The  Princess  Winky  Poo  salutes  her 
court!  " 

As  they  looked  up  she  caught  their  suspense  of  admiration. 
They  saw  an  airy  figure  in  trousers  and  coat  of  green  brocade 
edged  with  gold ;  a  high  gold  collar  under  a  proud  chin ;  black 
hair  pierced  with  jade  pins;  a  languid  peacock  fan  in  an  out* 


MAIN   STREET  79 

stretched  hand;  eyes  uplifted  to  a  vision  of  pagoda  towers. 
When  she  dropped  her  pose  and  smiled  down  she  discovered 
Kennicott  apoplectic  with  domestic  pride — and  gray  Guy  Pol 
lock  staring  beseechingly.  For  a  second  she  saw  nothing  in 
all  the  pink  and  brown  mass  of  their  faces  save  the  hunger 
of  the  two  men. 

She  shook  off  the  spell  and  ran  down.  "We're  going  to 
have  a  real  Chinese  concert.  Messrs.  Pollock,  Kennicott,  and, 
well,  Stowbody  are  drummers;  the  rest  of  us  sing  and  play  the 
fife." 

The  fifes  were  combs  with  tissue  paper;  the  drums  were 
tabourets  and  the  sewing-table.  Loren  Wheeler,  editor  of  the 
Dauntless,  led  the  orchestra,  with  a  ruler  and  a  totally  in 
accurate  sense  of  rhythm.  The  music  was  a  reminiscence  of 
tom-toms  heard  at  circus  fortune-telling  tents  or  at  the  Minne 
sota  State  Fair,  but  the  whole  company  pounded  and  puffed 
and  whined  in  a  sing-song,  and  looked  rapturous. 

Before  they  were  quite  tired  of  the  concert  Carol  led  them 
in  a  dancing  procession  to  the  dining-room,  to  blue  bowls  of 
chow  mein,  with  Lichee  nuts  and  ginger  preserved  in  syrup. 

None  of  them  save  that  city-rounder  Harry  Haydock  had 
heard  of  any  Chinese  dish  except  chop  sooey.  With  agree 
able  doubt  they  ventured  through  the  bamboo  shoots  into  the 
golden  fried  noodles  of  the  chow  mein;  and  Dave  Dyer  did 
a  not  very  humorous  Chinese  dance  with  Nat  Hicks;  and 
there  was  hubbub  and  contentment. 

Carol  relaxed,  and  found  that  she  was  shockingly  tired.  She 
had  carried  them  on  her  thin  shoulders.  She  could  not  keep 
it  up.  She  longed  for  her  father,  that  artist  at  creating  hyster 
ical  parties.  She  thought  of  smoking  a  cigarette,  to  shock  \| 
them,  and  dismissed  the  obscene  thought  before-  it  was  quite 
formed.  She  wondered  whether  they  could  for  five  minutes 
be  coaxed  to  talk  about  something  besides  the  -winter  top  of 
Knute  Stamquist's  Ford,  and  what  Al  Tingley  had  said  about 
his  mother-in-law.  She  sighed,  "Oh,  let  'em  alone.  I've 
done  enough."  She  crossed  her  trousered  legs, -and  snuggled 
luxuriously  above  her  saucer  of  ginger;  she  caught  Pollock's 
congratulatory  still  smile,  and  thought  well  of  herself  for  having 
thrown  a  rose  light  on  the  pallid  lawyer;  repented  the  heretical 
supposition  that  any  male  save  her  husband  existed;  jumped 
1!P  to  find  Kennicott  and  whisper,  "  Happy,  my  lord  ?  .  .  . 
No,  it  didn't  cost  much!  " 


80  MAIN   STREET 

"  Best  party  this  town  ever  saw.  Only Don't  cross  your 

legs  in  that  costume.  Shows  your  knees  too  plain." 

She  was  vexed.  She  resented  his  clumsiness.  She  returned 
to  Guy  Pollock  and  talked  of  Chinese  religions — not  that  she 
knew  anything  whatever  about  Chinese  religions,  but  he  had 
read  a  book  on  the  subject  as,  on  lonely  evenings  in  his  office, 
he  had  read  at  least  one  book  on  every  subject  in  the  world. 
Guy's  thin  maturity  was  changing  in  her  vision  to  flushed  youth 
and  they  were  roaming  an  island  in  the  yellow  sea  of  chatter 
when  she  realized  that  the  guests  were  beginning  that  cough 
which  indicated,  in  the  universal  instinctive  language,  that 
they  desired  to  go  home  and  go  to  bed. 

While  they  asserted  that  it  had  been  "  the  nicest  party 
they'd  ever  seen — my!  so  clever  and  original,"  she  smiled  tre 
mendously,  shook  hands,  and  cried  many  suitable  things  re 
garding  children,  and  being  sure  to  wrap  up  warmly,  and 
Raymie's  singihg  and  Juanita  Haydock's  prowess  at  games. 
Then  she  turned  wearily  to  Kennicott  in  a  house  filled  with 
quiet  and  crumbs  and  shreds  of  Chinese  costumes. 

He  was  gurgling,  "  I  tell  you,  Carrie,  you  certainly  are  a 
wonder,  and  guess  you're  right  about  waking  folks  up.  Now 
you've  showed  'em  how,  they  won't  go  on  having  the  same  old 
kind  of  parties  and  stunts  and  everything.  Here !  Don't  touch 
a  thing!  Done  enough.  Pop  up  to  bed,  and  I'll  clear  up." 

His  wise  surgeon 's-hands  stroked  her  shoulder,  and  her  ir 
ritation  at  his  clumsiness  was  lost  in  his  strength. 

v 

From  the  Weekly  Dauntless: 

One  of  the  most  delightful  social  events  of  recent  months  was 
held  Wednesday  evening  in  the  housewarming  of  Dr.  and  Mrs* 
Kennicott,  who  have  completely  redecorated  their  charming  home 
on  Poplar  Street,  and  is  now  extremely  nifty  in  modern  color 
scheme.  The  doctor  and  his  bride  were  at.  home  to  their  numerous 
friends  and  a  number  of  novelties  in  diversions  were  held,  including 
a  Chinese  orchestra  in  original  and  genuine  Oriental  costumes,  of 
which  Ye  Editor  was  leader.  Dainty  refreshments  were  served 
In  true  Oriental  style,  and  one  and  all  voted  a  delightful  time. 

VI 

The  week  after,  the  Chet  Dashaways  gave  a  party.  The 
cdrcle  of  mourners  kept  its  place  all  evening,  and  Dave  Dyer 
<nd  the  "  stunt "  of  the  Norwegian  and  the  hen. 


CHAPTER  VII 


GOPHER  PRAIRIE  was  digging  in  for  the  winter.  Through  late 
November  and  all  December  it  snowed  daily;  the  thermometer 
was  at  zero  and  might  drop  to  twenty  below,  or  thirty.  Winter 
is  not  a  season  in  the  North  Middlewest;  it  is  an  industry. 
Storm  sheds  were  erected  at  every  door.  In  every  block  the 
householders,  Sam  Clark,  the  wealthy  Llr,  Dawson,  all  save 
asthmatic  Ezra  Stowbody  who  extravagantly  hired  a  boy,  were 
seen  perilously  staggering  up  ladders,  carrying  storm  windows 
and  screwing  them  to  second-story  jambs.  While  Kennicott 
put  up  his  windows  Carol  danced  inside  the  bedrooms  and 
begged  him  not  to  swallow  the  screws,  which  he  held  in  his 
mouth  like  an  extraordinary  set  of  external  false  teeth. 

The  universal  sign  of  winter  was  the  town  handyman — 
Miles  Bjornstam,  a  tall,  thick,  red-mustached  bachelor,  opinion 
ated  atheist,  general-store  arguer,  cynical  Santa  Claus.  Chil 
dren  loved  him,  and  he  sneaked  away  from  work  to  tell  them 
improbable  stories  of  sea-faring  and  horse-trading  and  bears. 
The  children's  parents  either  laughed  at  him  or  hated  him.  He 
was  the  one  democrat  in  town.  He  called  both  Lyman  Cass 
the  miller  and  the  Finn  homesteader  from  Lost  Lake  by  their 
first  names.  He  was  known  as  "  The  Red  Swede,"  and  con 
sidered  slightly  insane. 

Bjornstam  could  do  anything  with  his  hands — solder  a  pan, 
weld  an  automobile  spring,  soothe  a  frightened  filly,  tinker  a 
clock,  carve  a  Gloucester  schooner  which  magically  went  into 
a  bottle.  Now,  for  a  week,  he  was  commissioner  general  of 
Gopher  Prairie.  He  was  the  only  person  besides  the  repairman 
at  Sam  Clark's  who  understood  plumbing.  Everybody  begged 
him  to  look  over  the  furnace  and  the  water-pipes.  He  rushed 
from  house  to  house  till  after  bedtime — ten  o'clock.  Icicles 
from  burst  water-pipes  hung  along  the  skirt  of  his  brown  dog 
skin  overcoat;  his  plush  cap,  which  he  never  took  off  in  the 
house,  was  a  pulp  of  ice  and  coal-dust;  his  red  hands  were 
cracked  to  rawness;  he  chewed  the  stub  of  a  cigar. 

81 


82  MAIN   STREET 

But  he  was  courtly  to  Carol.  He  stooped  to  examine  the 
furnace  flues;  he  straightened,  glanced  down  at  her,  and 
hemmed,  "  Got  to  fix  your  furnace,  no  matter  what  else  I  do." 

The  poorer  houses  of  Gopher  Prairie,  where  the  services  of 
Miles  Bjornstam  were  a  luxury — which  included  the  shanty 
of  Miles  Bjornstam — were  banked  to  the  lower  windows  with 
earth  and  manure.  Along  the  railroad  the  sections  of  snow 
fence,  which  had  been  stacked  all  summer  in  romantic  wooden 
tents  occupied  by  roving  small  boys,  were  set  up  to  prevent 
drifts  from  covering  the  track. 

The  farmers  came  into  town  in  home-made  sleighs,  with  bed- 
quilts  and  hay  piled  in  the  rough  boxes. 

Fur  coats,  fur  caps,  fur  mittens,  overshoes  buckling  almost 
to  the  knees,  gray  knitted  scarfs  ten  feet  long,  thick  woolen 
socks,  canvas  jackets  lined  with  fluffy  yellow  wool  like  the 
plumage  of  ducklings,  moccasins,  red  flannel  wristlets  for  the 
blazing  chapped  wrists  of  boys — these  protections  against  win 
ter  were  busily  dug  out  of  moth-ball-sprinkled  drawers  and 
tar-bags  in  closets,  and  all  over  town  small  boys  were  squeal 
ing,  "  Oh,  there's  my  mittens!  "  or  "  Look  at  my  shoe-packs!  " 
There  is  so  sharp  a  division  between  the  panting  summer  and 
the  stinging  winter  of  the  Northern  plains  that  they  redis 
covered  with  surprise  and  a  feeling  of  heroism  this  armor  of 
an  Artie  explorer. 

Winter  garments  surpassed  even  personal  gossip  as  the 
topic  at  parties.  It  was  good  form  to  ask,  "  Put  on  your 
heavies  yet?  "  There  were  as  many  distinctions  in  wraps  as  in 
motor  cars.  The  lesser  sort  appeared  in  yellow  and  black 
dogskin  coats,  but  Kennicott  was  lordly  in  a  long  raccoon 
ulster  and  a  new  seal  cap.  When  the  snow  was  too  deep  for 
his  motor  he  went  off  on  country  calls  in  a  shiny,  floral,  steel- 
tipped  cutter,  only  his  ruddy  nose  and  his  cigar  emerging  from 
the  fur. 

Carol  herself  stirred  Main  Street  by  a  loose  coat  of  nutria. 
Her  finger-tips  loved  the, silken  fur. 

Her  liveliest  activity  now  was  organizing  outdoor  sports  in 
the  motor-paralyzed  town. 

The  automobile  and  bridge-whist  had  not  only  made  more 
evident  the  social  divisions  in  Gopher  Prairie  but  they  had 
also  enfeebled  the  love  of  activity.  It  was  so  rich-looking  to 
sit  and  drive — and  so  easy.  Skiing  and  sliding  were  "  stupid  " 
and  "  old-fashioned."  In  fact,  the  village  longed  for  the  el* 


MAIN   STREET  83 

gance  of  city  recreations  almost  as  much  as  the  cities  longed 
for  village  sports;  and  Gopher  Prairie  took  as  much  pride  in 
neglecting  coasting  as  St.  Paul — or  New  York — in  going 
coasting.  Carol  did  inspire  a  successful  skating-party  in  mid- 
November.  Plover  Lake  glistened  in  clear  sweeps  of  gray- 
green  ice,  ringing  to  the  skates.  On  shore  the  ice- tipped  reeds 
clattered  in  the  wind,  and  oak  twigs  with  stubborn  last  leaves 
hung  against  a  milky  sky.  Harry  Haydock  did  figure-eights, 
and  Carol  was  certain  that  she  had  found  the  perfect  life. 
But  when  snow  had  ended  the  skating  and  she  tried  to  get  up 
a  moonlight  sliding  party,  the  matrons  hesitated  to  stir  away 
from  their  radiators  and  their  daily  bridge-whist  imitations  of 
the  city.  She  had  to  nag  them.  They  scooted  down  a  long 
hill  on  a  bob-sled,  they  upset  and  got  snow  down  their  necks, 
they  shrieked  that  they  would  do  it  again  immediately — and 
they  did  not  do  it  again  at  all. 

She  badgered  another  group  into  going  skiing.  They  shouted 
and  threw  snowballs,  and  informed  her  that  it  was  such  fun, 
and  they'd  have  another  skiing  expedition  right  -away,  and 
they  jollily  returned  home  and  never  thereafter  left  their 
manuals  of  bridge. 

Carol  was  discouraged.  She  was  grateful  when  Kennicott 
invited  her  to  go  rabbit-hunting  in  the  woods.  She  waded 
down  stilly  cloisters  between  burnt  stump  and  icy  oak,  through 
drifts  marked  with  a  million  hieroglyphics  of  rabbit  and  mouse 
and  bird.  She  squealed  as  he  leaped  on  a  pile  of  brush  and 
fired  at  the  rabbit  which  ran  out.  He  belonged  there,  mas 
culine  in  reefer  and  sweater  and  high-laced  boots.  That  night 
she  ate  prodigiously  of  steak  and  fried  potatoes ;  she  produced 
electric  sparks  by  touching  his  ear  with  her  finger-tip ;  she  slept 
twelve  hours ;  and  awoke  to  think  how  glorious  was  this  brave 
land. 

She  rose  to  a  radiance  of  sun  on  snow.  Snug  in  her  furs  she 
trotted  up-town.  Frosted  shingles  smoked  against  a  sky  colored 
like  flax-blossoms,  sleigh-bells  clinked,  shouts  of  greeting 
were  loud  in  the  thin  bright  air,  and  everywhere  was  a 
rhythmic  sound  of  wood-sawing.  It  was  Saturday,  and  the 
neighbors'  sons  were  getting  up  the  winter  fuel.  Behind  walls 
of  corded  wood  in  back  yards  their  sawbucks  stood  in  de 
pressions  scattered  with  canary-yellow  flakes  of  sawdust.  The 
frames  of  their  buck-saws  were  cherry-red,  the  blades  blued 
steel,  and  the  fresh  cut  ends  of  the  sticks — poplar,  maple,  iron- 


84  MAIN   STREET 

wood,  birch — were  marked  with  engraved  rings  of  growth.  The 
boys  wore  shoe-packs,  blue  flannel  shirts  with  enormous  pearl 
buttons,  and  mackinaws  of  crimson,  lemon  yellow,  and  foxy 
brown. 

Carol  cried  "  Fine  day!  "  to  the  boys;  she  came  in  a  glow 
to  Rowland  &  Gould's  grocery,  her  collar  white  with  frost 
from  her  breath;  she  bought  a  can  of  tomatoes  as  though  it 
were  Orient  fruit;  and  returned  home  planning  to  surprise 
Kennicott  with  an  omelet  Creole  for  dinner. 

So  brilliant  was  the  snow-glare  that  when  she  entered  the 
house  she  saw  the  door-knobs,  the  newspaper  on  the  table, 
every  white  surface  as  dazzling  mauve,  and  her  head  was  dizzy 
in  the  pyrotechnic  dimness.  When  her  eyes  had  recovered  she 
felt  expanded,  drunk  with  health,  mistress  of  life.  The  world 
was  so  luminous  that  she  sat  down  at  her  rickety  little  desk  in 
the  living-room  to  make  a  poem.  (She  got  no  farther  than 
"The  sky  is  bright,  the  sun  is  warm,  there  ne'er  will  be 
another  storm.") 

In  the  mid-afternoon  of  this  same  day  Kennicott  was  called 
into  the  country.  It  was  Bea's  evening  out — her  evening  for 
the  Lutheran  Dance.  Carol  was  alone  from  three  till  mid 
night.  She  wearied  of  reading  pure  love  stories  in  the  magazines 
and  sat  by  a  radiator,  beginning  to  brood. 

Thus  she  chanced  to  discover  that  she  had  nothing  to  do. 


n 

She  had,  she  meditated,  passed  thorough  the  novelty  of  seeing 
the  town  and  meeting  people,  of  skating  and  sliding  and 
hunting.  Bea  was  competent;  there  was  no  household  labor 
except  sewing  and  darning  and  gossipy  assistance  to  Bea  in 
bed-making.  She  couldn't  satisfy  her  ingenuity  in  planning 
meals.  At  Dahl  &  Oleson's  Meat  Market  you  didn't  give 
orders — you  wofully  inquired  whether  there  was  anything 
today  besides  steak  and  pork  and  ham.  The  cuts  of  beef  were 
not  cuts.  They  were  hacks.  Lamb  chops  were  as  exotic  as 
sharks'  fins.  The  meat-dealers  shipped  their  best  to  the  city, 
with  its  higher  prices. 

in  all  the  shops  there  was  the  same  lack  cf  choice.  She 
could  not  find  a  glass-headed  picture-nail  in  town;  she  did 
not  hunt  for  the  sort  of  veiling  she  wanted — she  took  what 
she  could  get;  and  only  at  Rowland  &  Gould's  was  there  such 


MAIN   STREET  85 

a  luxury  as  canned  asparagus.  Routine  care  was  all  she  could 
devote  to  the  house.  Only  by  such  fussing  as  the  Widow 
Bogart's  could  she  make  it  fill  her  time. 

ghe  could  not,  havfl  mitgl'Hp  PTnn]nymPnt  To  the  village 
doctor's  wife  it  was  taboo- 

She  was  a  woman  with  a  working  brain  and  no  work. 

Ihere  wereonly  three  things  which  she  coujdjioj^Have 
r>^rln;j:l^^  nr  frffinm*  i30  definitely 

a  part  oTtEe  town  that  she  woukrhe  fulfilled  hy  the,  activities 
of  churc^^fia~gEu^-club  and  bridge-parties. 

Children,  yes,  sne  wanted  them,  but She  was  not  quite 

ready.  She  had  been  embarrassed  by  Kennicott's  frankness, 
but  she  agreed  with  him  that  in  the  insane  condition  of  civiliza 
tion,  which  made  the  rearing  of  citizens  more  costly  and  perilous 
than  any  other  crime,  it  was  inadvisable  to  have  children  till 

he  had  made  more  money.  She  was  sorry Perhaps  he  had 

made  all  the  mystery  of  love  a  mechanical  cautiousness  but 

She  fled  from  the  thought  with  a  dubious,  "  Some  day." 

Her  "  reforms,"  her  impulses  toward  beauty  in  raw  Main 
Street,  they  had  become  indistinct.  But  she  would  set  them 
going  now.  She  would!  She  swore  it  with  soft  fist  beating 
the  edges  of  the  radiator.  And  at  the  end  of  all  her  vows 
she  had  no  notion  as  to  when  and  where  the  crusade  was  to 
begin. 

Become  an  authentic  part  of  the  town?  She  began  to  think 
with  unpleasant  lucidity.  She  reflected  that  she  did  not  know 
whether  the  people  liked  her.  She  had  gone  to  the  women  at 
afternoon-coffees,  to  the  merchants  in  their  stores,  with  so  many 
outpouring  comments  and  whimsies  that  she  hadn't  given  them 
a  chance  to  betray  their  opinions  of  her.  The  men  smiled — 
but  did  they  like  her?  She  was  lively  among  the  women — 
but  was  she  one  of  them?  She  could  not  recall  many  times 
when  she  had  been  admitted  to  the  whispering  of  scandal 
which  is  the  secret  chamber  of  Gopher  Prairie  conversation. 

She  was  poisoned  with  doubt,  as  she  drooped  up  to  bed. 

Next  day,  through  her  shopping,  her  mind  sat  back  and 
observed.  Dave  Dyer  and  Sam  Clark  were  as  cordial  as 
she  had  been  fancying;  but  wasn't  there  an  impersonal  abrupt 
ness  in  the  "  H'  are  yuh?  "  of  Chet  Dashaway?  Rowland  the 
grocer  was  curt.  Was  that  merely  his  usual  manner? 

"  It's  infuriating  to  have  to  pay  attention  to  what  people 
think.  In  St.  Paul  I  didn't  care.  But  here  I'm  spied  on. 


86  MAIN   STREET 

They're  watching  me.  I  mustn't  let  it  make  me  self-conscious," 
she  coaxed  herself — overstimulated  by  the  drug  of  thought, 
and  offensively  on  the  defensive. 


in 

A  thaw  which  stripped  the  snow  from  the  sidewalks;  a 
ringing  iron  night  when  the  lakes  could  be  heard  booming; 
a  clear  roistering  morning.  In  tarn  o'shanter  and  tweed  skirt 
Carol  felt  herself  a  college  junior  going  out  to  play  hockey. 
She  wanted  to  whoop,  her  legs  ached  to  run.  On  the  way 
home  from  shopping  she  yielded,  as  a  pup  would  have  yielded. 
She  galloped  down  a  block  and  as  she  jumped  from  a  curb 
across  a  welter  of  slush,  she  gave  a  student  "  Yippee!  " 

She  saw  that  in  a  window  three  old  women  were  gasping. 
Their  triple  glare  was  paralyzing.  Across  the  street,  at  an 
other  window,  the  curtain  had  secretively  moved.  She  stopped, 
walked  on  sedately,  changed  from  the  girl  Carol  into  Mrs.  Dr. 
Kennicott. 

She  never  again  felt  quite  young  enough  and  defiant  enough 
and  free  enough  to  run  and  halloo  in  the  public  streets;  and 
it  was  as  a  Nice  Married  Woman  that  she  attended  the  next 
weekly  bridge  of  the  Jolly  Seventeen. 


IV 

The  Jolly  Seventeen  (the  membership  of  which  ranged  from 
fourteen  to  twenty-six)  was  the  social  cornice  of  Gopher 
Prairie.  It  was  the  country  club,  the  diplomatic  set,  the  Sv. 
Cecilia,  the  Ritz  oval  room,  the  Club  de  Vingt.  To  belong  to 
it  was  to  be  "  in."  Though  its  membership  partly  coincided 
with  that  of  the  Thanatopsis  study  club,  the  Jolly  Seventeen 
as  a  separate  entity  guffawed  at  the  Thanatopsis,  and  con 
sidered  it  middle-class  and  even  "  highbrow." 

Most  of  the  Jolly  Seventeen  were  young  married  women, 
with  their  husbands  as  associate  members.  Once  a  week  they 
had  a  women's  afternoon-bridge;  once  a  month  the  husbands 
joined  them  for  supper  and  evening-bridge;  twice  a  year  they 
had  dances  at  I.  O.  O.  F.  Hall.  Then  the  town  exploded.  Only 
at  the  annual  balls  of  the  Firemen  and  of  the  Eastern  Star 
was  there  such  prodigality  of  chiffon  scarfs  and  tangoing  and 
heart-burnings,  and  these  rival  institutions  were  not  select— 


MAIN    STREET  87 

hired  girls  attended  the  Firemen's  Ball,  with  section-hands 
and  laborers.  Ella  Stowbody  had  once  gone  to  a  Jolly  Seven 
teen  Soiree  in  the  village  hack,  hitherto  confined  to  chief 
mourners  at  funerals;  and  Harry  Hay  dock  and  Dr.  Terry 
Gould  always  appeared  in  the  town's  only  specimens  of  evening 
clothes. 

The  afternoon-bridge  of  the  Jolly  Seventeen  which  followed 
Carol's  lonely  doubting  was  held  at  Juanita  Hay  dock's  new 
concrete  bungalow,  with  its  door  of  polished  oak  and  beveled 
plate-glass,  jar  of  ferns  in  the  plastered  hall,  and  in  the 
living-room,  a  fumed  oak  Morris  chair,  sixteen  color-prints, 
and  a  square  varnished  table  with  a  mat  made  of  cigar-ribbons 
on  which  was  one  Illustrated  Gift  Edition  and  one  pack  of 
cards  in  a  burnt-leather  case. 

Carol  stepped  into  a  sirocco  of  furnace  heat.  They  were 
already  playing.  Despite  her  flabby  resolves  she  had  not  yet 
learned  bridge.  She  was  winningly  apologetic  about  it  to 
Juanita,  and  ashamed  that  she  should  have  to  go  on  being 
apologetic. 

Mrs.  Dave  Dyer,  a  sallow  woman  with  a  thin  prettiness, 
devoted  to  experiments  in  religious  cults,  Illnesses,  and  scandal- 
bearing,  shook  her  finger  at  Carol  and  trilled,  "  You're  a 
naughty  one!  I  don't  believe  you  appreciate  the  honor,  when 
you  got  into  the  Jolly  Seventeen  so  easy!  " 

Mrs.  Chet  Dashaway  nudged  her  neighbor  at  the  second 
table.  But  Carol  kept  up  the  appealing  bridal  manner  so  far 
as  possible.  She  twittered,  "  You're  perfectly  right.  I'm  a 
lazy  thing.  I'll  make  Will  start  teaching  me  this  very  evening.* 
Her  supplication  had  all  the  sound  of  birdies  in  the  nest,  and 
Easter  church-bells,  and  frosted  Christmas  cards.  Internally 
she  snarled,  "  That  ought  to  be  saccharine  enough."  She  sat 
in  the  smallest  rocking-chair,  a  model  of  Victorian  modesty. 
But  she  saw  or  she  imagined  that  the  women  who  had  gurgled 
at  her  so  welcomingly  when  she  had  first  come  to  Gopher 
Prairie  were  nodding  at  her  brusquely. 

During  the  pause  after  the  first  game  she  petitioned  Mrs. 
Jackson  Elder,  "  Don't  you  think  we  ought  to  get  up  another 
bob-sled  party  soon?  " 

"It's  so  cold  when  you  get  dumped  in  the  snow,"  said 
Mrs.  Elder,  indifferently. 

"  I  hate  snow  down  my  neck,"  volunteered  Mrs.  Dave  Dyer, 
with  an  unpleasant  look  at  Carol  and,  taming  her  back,  she 


88  MAIN    STREET 

bubbled  at  Rita  Simons,  "  Dearie,  won't  you  run  in  this  eve 
ning?  I've  got  the  loveliest  new  Butterick  pattern  I  want  to 
show  you." 

Carol  crept  back  to  her  chair.  In  the  fervor  of  discussing 
the  game  they  ignored  her.  She  was  not  used  to  being  a 
wallflower.  She  struggled  to  keep  from  oversensitiveness,  from 
becoming  unpopular  by  the  sure  method  of  believing  that  she 
was  unpopular;  but  she  hadn't  much  reserve  of  patience,  and 
at  the  end  of  the  second  game,  when  Ella  Stowbody  sniffily 
asked  her,  "  Are  you  going  to  send  to  Minneapolis  for  your 
dress  for  the  next  soiree — heard  you  were,"  Carol  said  "  Don't 
know  yet "  with  unnecessary  sharpness. 

She  was  relieved  by  the  admiration  with  which  the  jeune  file 
Rita  Simons  looked  at  the  steel  buckles  on  her  pumps;  but 
she  resented  Mrs.  Rowland's  tart  demand,  "  Don't  you  find 
that  new  couch  of  yours  is  too  broad  to  be  practical?  "  She 
nodded,  then  shook  her  head,  and  touchily  left  Mrs.  Rowland 
to  get  out  of  it  any  meaning  she  desired.  Immediately  she 
wanted  to  make  peace.  She  was  close  to  simpering  in  the 
sweetness  with  which  she  addressed  Mrs.  Rowland:  "  I  think 
that  is  the  prettiest  display  of  beef-tea  your  husband  has  in 
his  store." 

"  Oh  yes,  Gopher  Prairie  isn't  so  much  behind  the  times," 
gibed  Mrs.  Rowland.  Some  one  giggled. 

Their  rebuffs  made  her  haughty;  her  haughtiness  irritated 
them  to  franker  rebuffs;  they  were  working  up  to  a  state  of 
painfully  righteous  war  when  they  were  saved  by  the  coming 
of  food. 

Though  Juanita  Haydock  was  highly  advanced  in  the  mat 
ters  of  finger-bowls,  doilies,  and  bath-mats,  her  "  refreshments  " 
were  typical  of  all  the  afternoon-coffees.  Juanita's  best  friends, 
Mrs.  Dyer  and  Mrs.  Dashaway,  passed  large  dinner  plates, 
each  with  a  spoon,  a  fork,  and  a  coffee  cup  without  saucer. 
They  apologized  and  discussed  the  afternoon's  game  as  they 
passed  through  the  thicket  of  women's  feet.  Then  they  dis 
tributed  hot  buttered  rolls,  coffee  poured  from  an  enamel-ware 
pot,  stuffed  olives,  potato  salad,  and  angel's-food  cake.  There 
was,  even  in  the  most  strictly  conforming  Gopher  Prairie 
circles,  a  certain  option  as  to  collations.  The  olives  need  not 
be  stuffed.  Doughnuts  were  in  some  houses  well  thought  of  as 
a  substitute  for  the  hot  buttered  rolls.  But  there  was  in  all 
the  town  no  heretic  save  Carol  who  omitted  angel's-food. 


MAIN   STREET  89 

They  ate  enormously.  Carol  had  a  suspicion  that  the 
thriftier  housewives  made  the  afternoon  treat  do  for  evening 
supper. 

She  tried  to  get  back  into  the  current.  She  edged  over  to 
Mrs.  McGanum.  Chunky,  amiable,  young  Mrs.  McGanum, 
with  her  breast  and  arms  of  a  milkmaid,  and  her  loud  delayed 
laugh  which  burst  startlingly  from  a  sober  face,  was  the 
daughter  of  old  Dr.  Westlake,  and  the  wife  of  Westlake's 
partner,  Dr.  McGanum.  Kennicott  asserted  that  Westlake  and 
McGanum  and  their  contaminated  families  were  tricky,  but 
Carol  had  found  them  gracious.  She  asked  for  friendliness  by 
crying  to  Mrs.  McGanum,  "  How  is  the  baby's  throat  now?  " 
and  she  was  attentive  while  Mrs.  McGanum  rocked  and  knitted 
and  placidly  described  symptoms. 

Vida  Sherwin  came  in  after  school,  with  Miss  Ethel  Villets, 
the  town  librarian.  Miss  Sherwin 's  optimistic  presence  gave 
Carol  more  confidence.  She  talked.  She  informed  the  circle, 
"  I  drove  almost  down  to  Wahkeenyan  with  Will,  a  few  days 
ago.  Isn't  the  country  lovely!  And  I  do  admire  the  Scan 
dinavian  farmers  down  there  so:  their  big  red  barns  and  silos 
and  milking-machines  and  everything.  Do  you  all  know  that 
lonely  Lutheran  church,  with  the  tin-covered  spire,  that  stands 
out  alone  on  a  hill?  It's  so  bleak;  somehow  it  seems  so  brave. 
I  do  think  the  Scandinavians  are  the  hardiest  and  best 
people " 

"  Oh,  do  you  think  so?  "  protested  Mrs.  Jackson  Elder. 
"  My  husband  says  the  Svenskas  that  work  in  the  planing-mill 
are  perfectly  terrible — so  silent  and  cranky,  and  so  selfish,  the 
way  they  keep  demanding  raises.  If  they  had  their  way  they'd 
simply  ruin  the  business." 

"Yes,  and  they're  simply  ghastly  hired  girls!  "  wailed  Mrs. 
Dave  Dyer.  "  I  swear,  I  work  myself  to  skin  and  bone  trying 
to  please  my  hired  girls — when  I  can  get  them!  I  do  every 
thing  in  the  world  for  them.  They  can  have  their  gentleman 
friends  call  on  them  in  the  kitchen  any  time,  and  they  get 
fust  the  same  to  eat  as  we  do,  if  there's  any  left  over,  and  I 
practically  never  jump  on  them." 

Juanita  Haydock  rattled,  "  They're  ungrateful,  all  that  class 
of  people.  I  do  think  the  domestic  problem  is  simply  becoming 
awful.  I  don't  know  what  the  country's  coming  to,  with  these 
Scandahoofian  clodhoppers  demanding  every  cent  you  can  save, 
and  so  ignorant  and  impertinent,  and  on  my  word,  demanding 


90  MAIN   STREET 

bath-tubs  and  everything — as  if  they  weren't  mighty  good  and 
lucky  at  home  if  they  got  a  bath  in  the  wash-tub." 

They  were  off,  riding  hard.  Carol  thought  of  Bea  and  way 
laid  them: 

"  But  isn't  it  possibly  the  fault  of  the  mistresses  if  the  maids 
are  ungrateful?  For  generations  we've  given  them  the  leavings 
of  food,  and  holes  to  live  in.  I  don't  want  to  boast,  but  I 
must  say  I  don't  have  much  trouble  with  Bea.  She's  so 
friendly.  The  Scandinavians  are  sturdy  and  honest " 

Mrs.  Dave  Dyer  snapped,  "  Honest?  Do  you  call  it  honest 
to  hold  us  up  for  every  cent  of  pay  they  can  get?  I  can't 
say  that  I've  had  any  of  them  steal  anything  (though  you 
might  call  it  stealing  to  eat  so  much  that  a  roast  of  beef  hardly 
lasts  three  days),  but  just  the  same  I  don't  intend  to  let  them 
think  they  can  put  anything  over  on  me!  I  always  make  them 
pack  and  unpack  their  trunks  down-stairs,  right  under  my 
eyes,  and  then  I  know  they  aren't  being  tempted  to  dishonesty 
by  any  slackness  on  my  part!  " 

"  How  much  do  the  maids  get  here?  "  Carol  ventured. 

Mrs.  B.  J.  Gougerling,  wife  of  the  banker,  stated  in  a  shocked 
manner,  "  Any  place  from  three-fifty  to  five-fifty  a  week!  I 
know  positively  that  Mrs.  Clark,  after  swearing  that  she 
wouldn't  weaken  and  encourage  them  in  their  outrageous  de 
mands,  went  and  paid  five-fifty — think  of  it!  practically  a 
dollar  a  day  for  unskilled  work  and,  of  course,  her  food  and 
room  and  a  chance  to  do  her  own  washing;  right  in  with  the 
rest  of  the  wash.  How  much  do  you  pay,  Mrs.  Kennicott?  " 

"  Yes!    How  much  do  you  pay?  "  insisted  half  a  dozen. 

"  W-why,  I  pay  six  a  week,"  she  feebly  confessed. 

They  gasped.  Juanita  protested,  "  Don't  you  think  it's  hard 
on  the  rest  of  us  when  you  pay  so  much?  "  Juanita 's  demand 
was  re-inforced  by  the  universal  glower. 

Carol  was  angry.  "  I  don't  care!  A  maid  has  one  of  the 
hardest  jobs  on  earth.  She  works  from  ten  to  eighteen  hours 
a  day.  She  has  to  wash  slimy  dishes  and  dirty  clothes.  She 
tends  the  children  and  runs  to  the  door  with  wet  chapped 
hands  and " 

Mrs.  Dave  Dyer  broke  into  Carol's  peroration  with  a  furious, 
"  That's  all  very  well,  but  believe  me,  I  do  those  things  myself 
when  I'm  without  a  maid — and  that's  a  good  share  of  the  time 
for  a  person  that  isn't  willing  to  yield  and  pay  exorbitant 
wages!  " 


MAIN   STREET  91 

Carol  was  retorting,  "  But  a  maid  does  it  for  strangers,  and 
all  she  gets  out  of  it  is  the  pay " 

Their  eyes  were  hostile.  Four  of  them  were  talking  at  once. 
Vida  Sherwin's  dictatorial  voice  cut  through,  took  control  of 
the  revolution: 

"Tut,  tut,  tut,  tut!  What  angry  passions — and  what  an 
idiotic  discussion!  All  of  you  getting  too  serious.  Stop  it! 
Carol  Kennicott,  you're  probably  right,  but  you're  too  much 
ahead  of  the  times.  Juanita,  quit  looking  so  belligerent.  What 
is  this,  a  card  party  or  a  hen  fight?  Carol,  you  stop  admiring 
yourself  as  the  Joan  of  Arc  of  the  hired  girls,  or  I'll  spank 
you.  You  come  over  here  and  talk  libraries  with  Ethel  Villets. 
Boooooo!  If  there's  any  more  pecking,  I'll  take  charge  of 
the  hen  roost  myself!  " 

They  all  laughed  artificially,  and  Carol  obediently  "  talked 
libraries." 

A  small-town  bungalow,  the  wives  of  a  village  doctor  and 
a  village  dry-goods  merchant,  a  provincial  teacher,  a  colloquial 
brawl  over  paying  a  servant  a  dollar  more  a  week.  Yet  this 
insignificance  echoed  cellar-plots  and  cabinet  meetings  and 
labor  conferences  in  Persia  and  Prussia,  Rome  and  Boston,  and 
the  orators  who  deemed  themselves  international  leaders  were 
but  the  raised  voices  of  a  billion  Juanitas  denouncing  a  million 
Carols,  with  a  hundred  thousand  Vida  Sherwins  trying  to  shoo 
away  the  storm. 

Carol  felt  guilty.  She  devoted  herself  to  admiring  the 
spinsterish  Miss  Villets — and  immediately  committed  another 
offense  against  the  laws  of  decency. 

"We  haven't  seen  you  at  the  library  yet,"  Miss  Villets 
reproved. 

"  I've  wanted  to  run  in  so  much  but  I've  been  getting  settled 

and I'll  probably  come  in  so  often  you'll  get  tired  of 

me!  I  hear  you  have  such  a  nice  library." 

"  There  are  many  who  like  it.  We  have  two  thousand  more 
books  than  Wakamin." 

"  Isn't  that  fine.  I'm  sure  you  are  largely  responsible. 
I've  had  some  experience,  in  St.  Paul." 

"  So  I  have  been  informed.  Not  that  I  entirely  approve 
of  library  methods  in  these  large  cities.  So  careless,  letting 
tramps  and  all  sorts  of  dirty  persons  practically  sleep  in  the 
reading-rooms." 

"  I  know,  but  the  poor  souls Well,  I'm  sure  you  will 


92  MAIN   STREET 

agree  with  me  in  one  thing:  The  chief  task  of  a  librarian  is  to 
get  people  to  read." 

"You  feel  so?  My  feeling,  Mrs.  Kennicott,  and  I  am 
merely  quoting  the  librarian  of  a  very  large  college,  is  that  the 
first  duty  of  the  conscientious  librarian  is  to  preserve  the 
books." 

"  Oh!  "  Carol  repented  her  "Oh."  Miss  Villets  stiffened, 
and  attacked: 

"  It  may  be  all  very  well  in  cities,  where  they  have  unlimited 
funds,  to  let  nasty  children  ruin  books  and  just  deliberately 
tear  them  up,  and  fresh  young  men  take  more  books  out 
than  they  are  entitled  to  by  the  regulations,  but  I'm  never 
going  to  permit  it  in  this  library!  " 

"What  if  some  children  are  destructive?  They  learn  to 
read.  Books  are  cheaper  than  minds." 

"  Nothing  is  cheaper  than  the  minds  of  some  of  these  children 
that  come  in  and  bother  me  simply  because  their  mothers 
don't  keep  them  home  where  they  belong.  Some  librarians 
may  choose  to  be  so  wishy-washy  and  turn  their  libraries  into 
nursing-homes  and  kindergartens,  but  as  long  as  I'm  in  charge, 
the  Gopher  Prairie  library  is  going  to  be  quiet  and  decent,  and 
the  books  well  kept!  " 

Carol  saw  that  the  others  were  listening,  waiting  for  her 
to  be  objectionable.  She  flinched  before  their  dislike.  She 
hastened  to  smile  in  agreement  with  Miss  Villets,  to  glance 
publicly  at  her  wrist-watch,  to  warble  that  it  was  "  so  late — 
have  to  hurry  home — husband — such  nice  party — maybe  you 
were  right  about  maids,  prejudiced  because  Bea  so  nice — such 
perfectly  divine  angel's-food,  Mrs.  Haydock  must  give  me  the 
recipe — good-by,  such  happy  party " 

She  walked  home.  She  reflected,  "  It  was  my  fault.  I  was 

touchy.  And  I  opposed  them  so  much.  Only I  can't! 

I  can't  be  one  of  them  if  I  must  damn  all  the  maids  toiling 
in  filthy  kitchens,  all  the  ragged  hungry  children.  And  these 
women  are  to  be  my  arbiters,  the  rest  of  my  life!  " 

She  ignored  Bea's  call  from  the  kitchen;  she  ran  up-stairs 
to  the  unfrequented  guest-room;  she  wept  in  terror,  her  body 
a  pale  arc  as  she  knelt  beside  a  cumbrous  black-walnut  bed, 
beside  a  puffy  mattress  covered  with  a  red  quilt,  in  a  shuttered 
and  airless  room. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

i 

'  DON'T  I,  in  looking  for  things  to  do,  show  that  I'm  not 
attentive  enough  to  Will?  Am  I  impressed  enough  by  his 
work?  I  will  be.  Oh,  I  will  be.  If  I  can't  be  one  of  the 
if  I  must  be  an  outcast 


When  Kennicott  came  home  she  bustled,  "  Dear,  you  musv 
tell  me  a  lot  more  about  your  cases.  I  want  to  know.  I  want 
to  understand." 

"  Sure.    You  bet."    And  he  went  down  to  fix  the  furnace. 

At  supper  she  asked,  "  For  instance,  what  did  you  dc 
today?  " 

"  Do  today?    How  do  you  mean?  " 

"  Medically.    I  want  to  understand  -  " 

"Today?  Oh,  there  wasn't  much  of  anything:  couple 
chumps  with  bellyaches,  and  a  sprained  wrist,  and  a  fool 
woman  that  thinks  she  wants  to  kill  herself  because  her  hus 
band  doesn't  like  her  and  -  Just  routine  work." 

"  But  the  unhappy  woman  doesn't  sound  routine!  " 

"  Her?  Just  case  of  nerves.  You  can't  do  much  with  these 
marriage  mix-ups." 

"  But  dear,  please,  will  you  tell  me  about  the  next  case 
that  you  do  think  is  interesting?  " 

"  Sure.  You  bet.  Tell  you  about  anything  that  -  Say, 
that's  pretty  good  salmon.  Get  it  at  Rowland's?  " 

n 

Four  days  after  the  Jolly  Seventeen  debacle  Vida  Sherwin 
called  and  casually  blew  Carol's  world  to  pieces. 

"  May  I  come  in  and  gossip  a  while?  "  she  said,  with  such 
excess  of  bright  innocence  that  Carol  was  uneasy.  Vida  took 
off  her  furs  with  a  bounce,  she  sat  down  as  though  it  were 
a  gymnasium  exercise,  she  flung  out: 

"  Feel  disgracefully  good,  this  weather!  Raymond  Wuther- 
spoon  says  if  he  had  my  energy  he'd  be  a  grand  opera  singer. 

93 


94  MAIN    STREET 

I  always  think  this  climate  is  the  finest  in  the  world,  and  my 
friends  are  the  dearest  people  in  the  world,  and  rry  work  is 
the  most  essential  thing  in  the  world.  Probably  I  fool  myself. 
But  I  know  one  thing  for  certain:  You're  the  pluckiest  little 
idiot  in  the  world." 

"And  so  you  are  about  to  flay  me  alive."  Carol  was 
cheerful  about  it. 

"  Am  I?  Perhaps.  I've  been  wondering — I  know  that  the 
third  party  to  a  squabble  is  often  the  most  to  blame:  the  one 
who  runs  between  A  and  B  having  a  beautiful  time  telling  each 
of  them  what  the  other  has  said.  But  I  want  you  to  take  a 

big  part  in  vitalizing  Gopher  Prairie  and  so Such  a  very 

unique  opportunity  and Am  I  silly?  " 

"  I  know  what  you  mean.  I  was  too  abrupt  at  the  Jolly 
Seventeen." 

"  It  isn't  that.  Matter  of  fact,  I'm  glad  you  told  them  some 
wholesome  truths  about  servants.  (Though  perhaps  you  were 
just  a  bit  tactless.)  It's  bigger  than  that.  I  wonder  if  you 
understand  that  in  a  secluded  community  like  this  every  new 
comer  is  on  test?  People  cordial  to  her  but  watching  her  all 
the  time.  I  remember  when  a  Latin  teacher  came  here  from 
Wellrsley,  they  resented  her  broad  A.  Were  sure  it  was 
affected.  Of  course  they  have  discussed  you " 

"  Have  they  talked  about  me  much?  " 

"My  dear!  " 

"  I  always  feel  as  though  I  walked  around  in  a  cloud,  looking 
out  at  others  but  not  being  seen.  I  feel  so  inconspicuous  and 
so  normal — so  normal  that  there's  nothing  about  me  to  discuss. 
I  can't  realize  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Haydock  must  gossip  about 
me."  Carol  was  working  up  a  small  passion  of  distaste.  "  And 
I  don't  like  it.  It  makes  me  crawly  to  think  of  their  daring 
to  talk  over  ail  I  do  and  say.  Pawing  me  over!  I  resent  it. 
I  hate " 

"  Wait,  child!  Perhaps  they  resent  some  things  in  you.  I 
want  you  to  try  and  be  impersonal.  They'd  paw  over  any 
body  who  came  in  new.  Didn't  you,  with  newcomers  in 
College?  " 

"  Yes." 

"Well  then!  Will  you  be  impersonal?  I'm  paying  you  the 
compliment  of  supposing  that  you  can  be.  I  want  you  to 
be  big  enough  to  help  me  make  this  town  worth  while." 

"  I'll  be  as  impersonal  as  cold  boiled  potatoes.     (Not  that 


MAIN    STREET  95 

I  shall  ever  be  able  to  help  you  '  make  the  town  worth  while/) 
What  do  they  say  about  me?  Really.  I  want  to  know." 

"  Of  course  the  illiterate  ones  resent  your  references  to  any 
thing  farther  away  than  Minneapolis.  They're  so  suspicious — 
that's  it,  suspicious.  And  some  think  you  dress  too  well." 

"  Oh,  they  do,  do  they!  Shall  I  dress  in  gunny-sacking  to 
suit  them?  " 

"  Please!    Are  you  going  to  be  a  baby?  " 

"  I'll  be  good,"  sulkily. 

"You  certainly  will,  or  I  won't  tell  you  one  single  thing 
Vou  must  understand  this:  I'm  not  asking  you  to  change  your* 
self.  Just  want  you  to  know  what  they  think.  You  must 
do  that,  no  matter  how  absurd  their  prejudices  are,  if  you're 
going  to  handle  them.  Is  it  your  ambition  to  make  this  a 
better  town,  or  isn't  it?  " 

"  I  don't  know  whether  it  is  or  not!  " 

«  Why— why Tut,  tut,  now,  of  course  it  is  I  Why,  I 

depend  on  you.  You're  a  born  reformer." 

"  I  am  not — not  any  more!  " 

"  Of  course  you  are." 

"Oh,  if  I  really  could  help—  So  they  think  I'm  af- 
tected?  " 

"  My  lamb,  they  do!  Now  don't  say  they're  nervy.  After 
all,  Gopher  Prairie  standards  are  as  reasonable  to  Gopher 
prairie  as  Lake  Shore  Drive  standards  are  to  Chicago.  And 
there's  more  Gopher  Prairies  than  there  are  Chicagos.  Or 

Londons.  And I'll  tell  you  the  whole  story:  They  think 

you're  showing  off  when  you  say  ' American'  instead  of 
1  Ammurrican.'  They  think  you're  too  frivolous.  Life's  so 
serious  to  them  that  they  can't  imagine  any  kind  of  laughter 
except  Juanita's  snortling.  Ethel  Villets  was  sure  you  were 
patronizing  her  when " 

"Oh,  I  was  not!  " 

" you  talked  about  encouraging  reading;  and  Mrs.  Elder 

thought  you  were  patronizing  when  you  said  she  had  'such 
a  pretty  little  car.'  She  thinks  it's  an  enormous  car!  And 
some  of  the  merchants  say  you're  too  flip  when  you  talk  to 
them  in  the  store  and — '• — " 

"  Poor  me,  when  I  was  trying  to  be  friendly!  " 

" every  housewife  in  town  is  doubtful  about  your  being 

so  chummy  with  your  Bea.  All  right  to  be  kind,  but  they  say 
you  act  as  though  she  were  your  cousin.  (Wait  now!  There's 


96  MAIN   STREET 

plenty  more.)  And  they  think  you  were  eccentric  in  fur 
nishing  this  room — they  think  the  broad  couch  and  that  Japa 
nese  dingus  are  absurd.  (Wait!  I  know  they're  silly.)  And 
I  guess  I've  heard  a  dozen  criticize  you  because  you  don't 
go  to  church  oftener  and " 

"  I  can't  stand  it — I  can't  bear  to  realize  that  they've  been 
saying  all  these  things  while  I've  been  going  about  so  happily 
and  liking  them.  I  wonder  if  you  ought  to  have  told  me?  It 
will  make  me  self-conscious." 

"  I  wonder  the  same  thing.  Only  answer  I  can  get  is  the 
old  saw  about  knowledge  being  power.  And  some  day  you'll 
see  how  absorbing  it  is  to  have  power,  even  here;  to  control 

the  town Oh,  I'm  a  crank.  But  I  do  like  to  see  things 

moving." 

"  It  hurts.  It  makes  these  people  seem  so  beastly  and 
treacherous,  when  I've  been  perfectly  natural  with  them.  But 
let's  have  it  all.  What  did  they  say  about  my  Chinese  house- 
warming  party?  " 

"Why,  uh " 

"  Go  on.  Or  I'll  make  up  worse  things  than  anything  you 
can  tell  me." 

"  They  did  enjoy  it.  But  I  guess  some  of  them  felt  you 
were  showing  off — pretending  that  your  husband  is  richer  thac 
he  is." 

"  I  can't Their  meanness  of  mind  is  beyond  any  horrors 

I  could  imagine.  They  really  thought  that  I And  you 

want  to  '  reform '  people  like  that  when  dynamite  is  so  cheap? 
Who  dared  to  say  that?  The  rich  or  the  poor?  " 

"  Fairly  well  assorted." 

"  Can't  they  at  least  understand  me  well  enough  to  see 
that  though  I  might  be  affected  and  culturine,  at  least  I  simply 
couldn't  commit  that  other  kind  of  vulgarity?  If  they  must 
know,  you  may  tell  them,  with  my  compliments,  that  Will 
makes  about  four  thousand  a  year,  and  the  party  cost  half  of 
what  they  probably  thought  it  did.  Chinese  things  are  not 
very  expensive,  and  I  made  my  own  costume " 

"  Stop  it!  Stop  beating  me!  I  know  all  that.  What  they 
meant  was:  they  felt  you  were  starting  dangerous  competition 
by  giving  a  party  such  as  most  people  here  can't  afford.  Four 
thousand  is  a  pretty  big  income  for  this  town." 

"  I  never  thought  of  starting  competition.  Will  you  believe 
that  it  was  in  all  love  and  friendliness  that  I  tried  to  gr'C 


MAIN    STREET  97 

them  the  gayest  party  I  could?  It  was  foolish;  it  was  childish 
and  noisy.  But  I  did  mean  it  so  well." 

"  I  know,  of  course.  And  it  certainly  is  unfair  of  them  to 
make  fun  of  your  having  that  Chinese  food — chow  men,  was 
it? — and  'to  laugh  about  your  wearing  those  pretty  trou 
sers " 

Carol  sprang  up,  whimpering,  "Oh,  they  didn't  do  that! 
They  didn't  poke  fun  at  my  feast,  that  I  ordered  so  carefully 
for  them!  And  my  little  Chinese  costume  that  I  was  so  happy 
making — I  made  it  secretly,  to  surprise  them.  And  they've 
been  ridiculing  it,  all  this  while!  " 

She  was  huddled  on  the  couch. 

Vida  was  stroking  her  hair,  muttering,  "I  shouldn't " 

Shrouded  in  shame,  Carol  did  not  know  when  Vida  slipped 
away.  The  clock's  bell,  at  half  past  five,  aroused  her.  "  I 
must  get  hold  of  myself  before  Will  comes.  I  hope  he  never 
knows  what  a  ,fool  his  wife  is.  ...  Frozen,  sneering, 
horrible  hearts." 

Like  a  very  small,  very  lonely  girl  she  trudged  up-stairs, 
slow  step  by  step,  her  feet  dragging,  her  hand  on  the  rail. 
It  was  not  her  husband  to  whom  she  wanted  to  run  for  pro 
tection — it  was  her  father,  her  smiling  understanding  father, 
dead  these  twelve  years. 


m 

Kennicott  was  yawning,  stretched  in  the  largest  chair,  be 
tween  the  radiator  ajid  a  small  kerosene  stove. 

Cautiously,  "  Wilf  dear,  I  wonder  if  the  people  here  don't 
criticize  me  sometimes?  They  must.  I  mean:  if  they  ever  do, 
you  mustn't  let  it  bother  you." 

"  Criticize  you?  Lord,  I  should  say  not.  They  all  keep 
telling  me  you're  the  swellest  girl  they  ever  saw." 

"  Well,  I've  just  fancied The  merchants  probably  think 

I'm  too  fussy  about  shopping.  I'm  afraid  I  bore  Mr.  Dash- 
away  and  Mr.  Rowland  and  Mr.  Ludelmeyer." 

"  I  can  tell  you  how  that  is.  I  didn't  want  to  speak  of  it, 
but  since  you've  brought  it  up:  Chet  Dashaway  probably 
resents  the  fact  that  you  got  this  new  furniture  down  in  the 
Cities  instead  of  here.  I  didn't  want  to  raise  any  objection  at 
the  time  but— —  After  all,  I  make  my  money  here  and  they 
naturally  expect  me  to  spend  it  here." 


9$  MAIN    STREET 

"  If  Mr.  Dashaway  will  kindly  tell  me  how  any  civilized  per 
son  can  furnish  a  room  out  of  the  mortuary  pieces  that  he 
calls "  She  remembered.  She  said  meekly,  "  But  I  under 
stand." 

"  And  Rowland  and  Ludelmeyer Oh,  you've  probably 

handed  'em  a  few  roasts  for  the  bum  stocks  they  carry,  when 
you  just  meant  to  jolly  'em.  But  rats,  what  do  we  care  I 
This  is  an  independent  town,  not  like  these  Eastern  holes 
where  you  have  to  watch  your  step  all  the  time,  and  live  up 
to  fool  demands  and  social  customs,  and  a  lot  of  old  tabbies 
always  busy  criticizing.  Everybody's  free  here  to  do  what  he 
wants  to."  He  said  it  with  a  flourish,  and  Carol  perceived 
that  he  believed  it.  She  turned  her  breath  of  fury  into  a 
yawn. 

"  By  the  way,  Carrie,  while  we're  talking  of  this:  Of  course 
I  like  to  keep  independent,  and  I  don't  believe  in  this  busines 
of  binding  yourself  to  trade  with  the  man  that  trades  wit 
you  unless  you  really  want  to,  but  same  time:  I'd  be  just 
as  glad  if  you  dealt  with  Jenson  or  Ludelmeyer  as  much  as 
you  can,  instead  of  Rowland  &  Gould,  who  go  to  Dr.  Gould 
every  last  time,  and  the  whole  tribe  of  'em  the  same  way, 
I  don't  see  why  I  should  be  paying  out  my  good  money  for 
groceries  and  having  them  pass  it  on  to  Terry  Gould!  " 

"  I've  gone  to  Rowland  &  Gould  because  they're  better,  and 
cleaner." 

"I  know.  I  don't  mean  cut  them  out  entirely.  Course 
Jenson  is  tricky — give  you  short  weight — and  Ludelmeyer  is 
a  shiftless  old  Dutch  hog.  But  same  time,  I  mean  let's  keep 
the  trade  in  the  family  whenever  it  is  convenient,  see  how  I 
mean?  " 

"  I  see." 

"  Well,  guess  it's  about  time  to  turn  in." 

He  yawned,  went  out  to  look  at  the  thermometer,  slammed 
the  door,  patted  her  head,  unbuttoned  his  waistcoat,  yawned, 
wound  the  clock,  went  down  to  look  at  the  furnace,  yawned, 
and  clumped  up-stairs  to  bed,  casually  scratching  his  thick 
woolen  undershirt. 

Till  he  bawled,  "  Aren't  you  ever  coming  up  to  bed?  "  she 
Sat  unmoviug. 


CHAPTER  IX 


SHE  had  tripped  into  the  meadow  to  teach  the  lambs  a  pretty 
educational  dance  and  found  that  the  lambs  were  wolves, 
There  was  no  way  out  between  their  pressing  gray  shoulders. 
She  was  surrounded  by  fangs  and  sneering  eyes. 

She  could  not  go  on  enduring  the  hidden  derision.  She 
wanted  to  flee.  She  wanted  to  hide  in  the  generous  indifference 
of  cities.  She  practised  saying  to  Kennicott,  "  Think  perhaps 
I'll  run  down  to  St.  Paul  for  a  few  days."  But  she  could 
not  trust  herself  to  say  it  carelessly;  could  not  abide  his 
certain  questioning. 

Reform  the  town?    All  she  wanted  was  to  be  tolerated! 

She  could  not  look  directly  at  people.  She  flushed  and 
winced  before  citizens  who  a  week  ago  had  been  amusing 
objects  of  study,  and  in  their  good-mornings  she  heard  a  cruel 
sniggering. 

She  encountered  Juanita  Haydock  at  Ole  Jensen's  grocery. 
She  besought,  "  Oh,  how  do  you  do!  Heavens,  what  beautiful 
celery  that  is!  " 

"  Yes,  doesn't  it  look  fresh.  Harry  simply  has  to  have  his 
celery  on  Sunday,  drat  the  man!  " 

Carol  hastened  out  of  the  shop  exulting,  "  She  didn't  make 
fun  of  me.  ...  Did  she?  " 

In  a  week  she  had  recovered  from  consciousness  of  in 
security,  of  shame  and  whispering  notoriety,  but  she  kept  her 
habit  of  avoiding  people.  She  walked  the  streets  with  her  head 
down.  When  she  spied  Mrs.  McGanum  or  Mrs.  Dyer  ahead 
she  crossed  over  with  an  elaborate  pretense  of  looking  at  a 
billboard.  Always  she  was  acting,  for  the  benefit  of  every  one 
she  saw — and  for  the  benefit  of  the  ambushed  leering  eyes 
which  she  did  not  see. 

She  perceived  that  Vida  Sherwin  had  told  the  truth.  Whether 
she  entered  a  store,  or  swept  the  back  porch,  or  stood  at  the 
bay-window  in  the  living-room,  the  village  peeped  at  her. 
Once  she  had  swung  along  the  street  triumphant  in  making 

OQ 


ioo  MAIN   STREET 

a  home.  Now  she  glanced  at  each  house,  and  felt,  when  she 
was  safely  home,  that  she  had  won  past  a  thjusand  enemies 
armed  with  ridicule.  She  told  herself  that  her  sensitiveness 
was  preposterous,  but  daily  she  was  thrown  into  panic.  She 
saw  curtains  slide  back  into  innocent  smoothness.  Old  women 
who  had  been  entering  their  houses  slipped  out  again  to  stare 
at  her — in  the  wintry  quiet  she  could  hear  them  tiptoeing 
on  their  porches.  When  she  had  for  a  blessed  hour  forgotten 
the  searchlight,  when  she  was  scampering  through  a  chill  dusk, 
happy  in  yellow  windows  against  gray  night,  her  heart  checked 
as  she  realized  that  a  head  covered  with  a  shawl  was  thrust 
up  over  a  snow- tipped  bush  to  watch  her. 

She  admitted  that  she  was  taking  herself  too  seriously;  that 
villagers  gape  at  every  one.  She  became  placid,  and  thought 
j/ell  of  her  philosophy.  But  next  morning  she  had  a  shock 
of  shame  as  she  entered  Ludelmeyer's.  The  grocer,  his  clerk, 
and  neurotic  Mrs.  Dave  Dyer  had  been  giggling  about  some 
thing.  They  halted,  looked  embarrassed,  babbled  about  onions. 
Carol  felt  guilty.  That  evening  when  Kennicott  took  her  to 
call  on  the  crochety  Lyman  Casses,  their  hosts  seemed  flustered 
at  their  arrival.  Kennicott  jovially  hooted,  "  What  makes  you 
so  hang-dog,  Lym?  "  The  Casses  tittered  feebly. 

Except  Dave  Dyer,  Sam  Clark,  and  Raymie  WutherspooEj 
there  were  no  merchants  of  whose  welcome  Carol  was  certain. 
She  knew  that  she  read  mockery  into  greetings  but  she  could 
not  control  her  suspicion,  could  not  rise  from  her  psychic  col 
lapse.  She  alternately  raged  and  flinched  at  the  superiority  of 
the  merchants.  They  did  not  know  that  they  were  being  rude, 
but  they  meant  to  have  it  understood  that  they  were  prosperous 
and  "  not  scared  of  no  doctor's  wife."  They  often  said,  "  One 
man's  as  good  as  another — and  a  darn  sight  better."  This 
motto,  however,  they  did  not  commend  to  farmer  customers 
who  had  had  crop  failures.  The  Yankee  merchants  were 
crabbed;  and  Ole  Jenson,  Ludelmeyer,  and  Gus  Dahl,  from  the 
"Old  Country,"  wished  to  be  taken  for  Yankees.  James 
Madison  Rowland,  born  in  New  Hampshire,  and  Ole  Jenson, 
born  in  Sweden,  both  proved  that  they  were  free  American 
citizens  by  grunting,  "  I  don't  know  whether  I  got  any  or  not," 
or  "  Well,  you  can't  expect  me  to  get  it  delivered  by  noon." 

It  was  good  form  for  the  customers  to  fight  back.  Juanita 
Haydock  cheerfully  jabbered,  "  You  have  it  there  by  twelve  or 
I'll  snatch  that  fresh  delivery-boy  bald-headed."  But  Carol 


MAIN   STREET  101 

had  never  been  able  to  play  the  game  of  friendly  rudeness; 
and  now  she  was  certain  that  she  never  would  learn  it.  She 
formed  the  cowardly  habit  of  going  to  Axel  Egge's. 

Axel  was  not  respectable  and  rude.  He  was  still  a  foreigner, 
and  he  expected  to  remain  one.  His  manner  was  heavy  and 
uninterrogative.  His  establishment  was  more  fantastic  than 
any  cross-roads  store.  No  one  save  Axel  himself  coulcj  .find 
anything.  A  part  of  the  assortment  of  children : s.  s^tvikiugai 
was  under  a  blanket  on  a  shelf,  a  part  in  a  tin  gingerrsnap  box, 
the  rest  heaped  like  a  nest  of  black-cotton  snakes  upon  a  ftqiiirr 
barrel  which  was  surrounded  by  brooms,  Norwegian  Bibles', 
dried  cod  for  ludfisk,  boxes  of  apricots,  and  a  pair  and  a  half 
of  lumbermen's  rubber-footed  boots.  The  place  was  crowded 
with  Scandinavian  farmwives,  standing  aloof  in  shawls  and 
ancient  fawn-colored  leg  o'  mutton  jackets,  awaiting  the  return 
of  their  lords.  They  spoke  Norwegian  or  Swedish,  and  looked 
at  Carol  uncomprehendingly.  They  were  a  relief  to  her — 
they  were  not  whispering  that  she  was  a  poseur. 

But  what  she  told  herself  was  that  Axel  Egge's  was  "  so 
picturesque  and  romantic." 

It  was  in  the  matter  of  clothes  that  she  was  most  self- 
conscious. 

When  she  dared  to  go  shopping  in  her  new  checked  suit  with 
the  black-embroidered  sulphur  collar,  she  had  as  good  as  in 
vited  all  of  Gopher  Prairie  (which  interested  itself  in  nothing 
so  intimately  as  in  new  clothes  and  the  cost  thereof)  to  in 
vestigate  her.  It  was  a  smart  suit  with  lines  unfamiliar  to  the 
dragging  yellow  and  pink  frocks  of  the  town.  The  Widow 
Bogart's  stare,  from  her  porch,  indicated,  "  Well  I  never  saw 
anything  like  that  before!  "  Mrs.  McGanum  stopped  Carol 
at  the  notions  shop  to  hint,  "  My,  that's  a  nice  suit — wasn't 
it  terribly  expensive?  "  The  gang  of  boys  in  front  of  the 
drug  store  commented,  "  Hey,  Pudgie,  play  you  a  game  of 
checkers  on  that  dress."  Carol  could  not  endure  it.  She 
drew  her  fur  coat  over  the  suit  and  hastily  fastened  the  buttons, 
while  the  boys  snickered. 


n 

No  group  angered  her  quite  so  much  as  these  staring  young 
roues. 

She  had  tried  to  convince  herself  that  the  village,  with  its 


102  MAIN   STREET 

fresh  air,  its  lakes  for  fishing  and  swimming,  was  healthier  than 
the  artificial  city.  But  she  was  sickened  by  glimpses  of  the 
gang  of  boys  from  fourteen  to  twenty  who  loafed  before  Dyer's 
Drug  Store,  smoking  cigarettes,  displaying  "  fancy  "  shoes  and 
purple  ties  and  coats  of  diamond-shaped  buttons,  whistling 
the  Hoochi-Koochi  and  catcalling,  "  Oh,  you  baby-doll "  at 
every.  pa?sifig  girl. 

,  Sl.e^saw  them  playing  pool  in  the  stinking  room  behind  Del 
Snafflin's  barber  shop,  and  shaking  dice  in  "  The  Smoke  House," 
cine*  -gathered  .in  a  snickering  knot  to  listen  to  the  "  juicy 
stories"  of  Bert  Tybee,  the  bartender  of  the  Minniemashie 
House.  She  heard  them  smacking  moist  lips  over  every  love- 
scene  at  the  Rosebud  Movie  Palace.  At  the  counter  of  the 
Greek  Confectionery  Parlor,  while  they  ate  dreadful  messes 
of  decayed  bananas,  acid  cherries,  whipped  cream,  and  gelat 
inous  ice-cream,  they  screamed  to  one  another,  "  Hey,  lemme 
'lone,"  "  Quit  dog-gone  you,  looka  what  you  went  and  done, 
you  almost  spilled  my  glass  swater,"  "  Like  hell  I  did,"  "  Hey, 
gol  darn  your  hide,  don't  you  go  sticking  your  coffin  nail  in 
my  i-scream,"  "  Oh  you  Batty,  how  juh  like  dancing  with  Tillie 
McGuire,  last  night?  Some  squeezing,  heh,  kid?  " 

By  diligent  consultation  of  American  fiction  she  discovered 
that  this  was  the  only  virile  and  amusing  manner  in  which 
boys  could  function;  that  boys  who  were  not  compounded  of 
the  gutter  and  the  mining-camp  were  mollycoddles  and  un 
happy.  She  had  taken  this  for  granted.  She  had  studied  the 
boys  pityingly,  but  impersonally.  It  had  not  occurred  to  her 
that  they  might  touch  her. 

Now  she  was  aware  that  they  knew  all  about  her ;  that  they 
were  waiting  for  some  affectation  over  which  they  could  guffaw. 
No  schoolgirl  passed  their  observation-posts  more  flushingly 
than  did  Mrs.  Dr.  Kennicott.  In  shame  she  knew  that  they 
glanced  appraisingly  at  her  snowy  overshoes,  speculating  about 
her  legs.  Theirs  were  not  young  eyes — there  was  no  youth 
in  all  the  town,  she  agonized.  They  were  born  old,  grim  and 
old  and  spying  and  censorious. 

She  cried  again  that  their  youth  was  senile  and  cruel  on  the 
day  when  she  overheard  Cy  Bogart  and  Earl  Haydock. 

Cyrus  N.  Bogart,  son  of  the  righteous  widow  who  lived 
across  the  alley,  was  at  this  time  a  boy  of  fourteen  or  fifteen. 
Carol  had  already  seen  quite  enough  of  Cy  Bogart.  On  her 
first  evening  in  Gopher  Prairie  Cy  had  appeared  at  the  head 


MAIN   STREET  103 

of  a  "  charivari,"  banging  immensely  upon  a  discarded  auto 
mobile  fender.  His  companions  were  yelping  in  imitation  of 
coyotes.  Kennicott  had  felt  rather  complimented;  had  gone 
out  and  distributed  a  dollar.  But  Cy  was  a  capitalist  in 
charivaris.  He  returned  with  an  entirely  new  group,  and  this 
time  there  were  three  automobile  fenders  and  a  carnival  rattle. 
When  Kennicott  again  interrupted  his  shaving,  Cy  piped, 
"  Naw,  you  got  to  give  us  two  dollars,"  and  he  got  it.  A  week 
later  Cy  rigged  a  tic-tac  to  a  window  of  the  living-room,  and 
the  tattoo  out  of  the  darkness  frightened  Carol  into  screaming. 
Since  then,  in  four  months,  she  had  beheld  Cy  hanging  a  cat, 
stealing  melons,  throwing  tomatoes  at  the  Kennicott  house,  and 
making  ski-tracks  across  the  lawn,  and  had  heard  him  ex 
plaining  the  mysteries  of  generation,  with  great  audibility  and 
dismaying  knowledge.  He  was,  in  fact,  a  museum  specimen 
of  what  a  small  town,  a  well-disciplined  public  school,  a  tra 
dition  of  hearty  humor,  and  a  pious  mother  could  produce  from 
the  material  of  a  courageous  and  ingenious  mind. 

Carol  was  afraid  of  him.  Far  from  protesting  when  he  set 
his  mongrel  on  a  kitten,  she  worked  hard  at  not  seeing  him. 

The  Kennicott  garage  was  a  shed  littered  with  paint-cans, 
tools,  a  lawn-mower,  and  ancient  wisps  of  hay.  Above  it  was 
a  loft  which  Cy  Bogart  and  Earl  Haydock,  young  brother  of 
Harry,  used  as  a  den,  for  smoking,  hiding  from  whippings, 
and  planning  secret  societies.  They  climbed  to  it  by  a  ladder 
on  the  alley  side  of  the  shed. 

This  morning  of  late  January,  two  or  three  weeks  after 
Vida's  revelations,  Carol  had  gone  into  the  stable-garage  to 
find  a  hammer.  Snow  softened  her  step.  She  heard  voices 
in  the  loft  above  her: 

"Ah  gee,  lez — oh,  lez  go  down  the  lake  and  swipe  some 
mushrats  out  of  somebody's  traps,"  Cy  was  yawning. 

"And  get  our  ears  beat  off!  "  grumbled  Earl  Haydock. 

"  Gosh,  these  cigarettes  are  dandy.  'Member  when  we  were 
just  kids,  and  used  to  smoke  corn-silk  and  hayseed?  " 

"  Yup.    Gosh!  " 

Spit.    Silence. 

"  Say  Earl,  ma  says  if  you  chew  tobacco  you  get  consump 
tion." 

"  Aw  rats,  your  old  lady  is  a  crank." 

"  Yuh,  that's  so."  Pause.  "  But  she  says  she  knows  a  fefia 
that 


104  MAIN   STREET 

"  Aw,  gee  whiz,  didn't  Doc  Kennicott  used  to  chew  tobacco 
all  the  time  before  he  married  this-here  girl  from  the  Cities? 

He  used  to  spit Gee  I  Some  shot!  He  could  hit  a  tree 

ten  feet  off." 

This  was  news  to  the  girl  from  the  Cities. 

"  Say,  how  is  she?  "  continued  Earl. 

"  Huh?     How's  who?  " 

"  You  know  who  I  mean,  smarty." 

A  tussle,  a  thumping  of  loose  boards,  silence,  weary  nar 
ration  from  Cy: 

"  Mrs.  Kennicott?  Oh,  she's  all  right,  I  guess."  Relief  to 
Carol,  below.  "  She  gimme  a  hunk  o'  cake,  one  time.  But 
Ma  says  she's  stuck-up  as  hell.  Ma's  always  talking  about 
her.  Ma  says  if  Mrs.  Kennicott  thought  as  much  about  the 
doc  as  she  does  about  her  clothes,  the  doc  wouldn't  look  so 
peaked." 

Spit.    Silence. 

"  Yuh.  Juanita's  always  talking  about  her,  too,"  from  Earl. 
"  She  says  Mrs.  Kennicott  thinks  she  knows  it  all.  Juanita 
says  she  has  to  laugh  till  she  almost  busts  every  time  she 
sees  Mrs.  Kennicott  peerading  along  the  street  with  that  c  take 
a  look — I'm  a  swell  skirt '  way  she's  got.  But  gosh,  I  don't 
pay  no  attention  to  Juanita.  She's  meaner  'n  a  crab." 

"  Ma  was  telling  somebody  that  she  heard  that  Mrs.  Ken 
nicott  claimed  she  made  forty  dollars  a  week  when  she  was 
on  some  job  in  the  Cities,  and  Ma  says  she  knows 
posolutely  that  she  never  made  but  eighteen  a  week — Ma  says 
that  when  she's  lived  here  a  while  she  won't  go  round  making 
a  fool  of  herself,  pulling  that  bighead  stuff  on  folks  that  know 
a  whole  lot  more  than  she  does.  They're  all  laughing  up  their 
sleeves  at  her." 

"  Say,  jever  notice  how  Mrs.  Kennicott  fusses  around  the 
house?  Other  evening  when  I  was  coming  over  here,  she'd 
forgot  to  pull  down  the  curtain,  and  I  watched  her  for  ten 
minutes.  Jeeze,  you'd  'a7  died  laughing.  She  was  there  all 
alone,  and  she  must  'a1  spent  five  minutes  getting  a  picture 
straight.  It  was  funny  as  hell  the  way  she'd  stick  out  her  finger 
to  straighten  the  picture — deedle-dee,  see  my  tunnin'  'ittle 
finger,  oh  my,  ain't  I  cute,  what  a  fine  long  tail  my  cat's  got!  " 

"  But  say,  Earl,  she's  some  good-looker,  just  the  same,  and 
O  Ignatz!  the  glad  rags  she  must  of  bought  for  her  wedding. 
Jever  notice  these  low-cut  dresses  and  these  thin  shimmy-shirts 


MAIN   STREET  105 

she  wears?  I  had  a  good  squint  at  'em  when  they  were  out 
on  the  line  with  the  wash.  And  some  ankles  she's  got,  heh?  " 

Then  Carol  fled. 

In  her  innocence  she  had  not  known  that  the  whole  town 
could  discuss  even  her  garments,  her  body.  She  felt  that  she 
was  being  dragged  naked  down  Main  Street. 

The  moment  it  was  dusk  she  pulled  down  the  window-shades, 
all  the  shades,  flush  with  the  sill,  but  beyond  them  she  felt 
moist  fleering  eyes. 


in 

She  remembered,  and  tried  to  forget,  and  remembered  more 
«$iarply  the  vulgar  detail  of  her  husband's  having  observed  the 
ancient  customs  of  the  land  by  chewing  tobacco.  She  would 
have  preferred  a  prettier  vice — gambling  or  a  mistress.  For 
these  she  might  have  found  a  luxury  of  forgiveness.  She  could 
not  remember  any  fascinatingly  wicked  hero  of  fiction  who 
chewed  tobacco.  She  asserted  that  it  proved  him  to  be  a  man 
of  the  bold  free  West.  She  tried  to  align  him  with  the  hairy- 
chested  heroes  of  the  motion-pictures.  She  curled  on  the  couch, 
a  pallid  softness  in  the  twilight,  and  fought  herself,  and  lost  the 
battle.  Spitting  did  not  identify  him  with  rangers  riding  the 
buttes;  it  merely  bound  him  to  Gopher  Prairie — to  Nat  Hicks 
the  tailor  and  Bert  Tybee  the  bartender. 

"  But  he  gave  it  up  for  me.  Oh,  what  does  it  matter!  We're 
all  filthy  in  some  things.  I  think  of  myself  as  so  superior, 
but  I  do  eat  and  digest,  I  do  wash  my  dirty  paws  and  scratch. 
I'm  not  a  cool  slim  goddess  on  a  column.  There  aren't  any! 
He  gave  it  up  for  me.  He  stands  by  me,  believing  that  every 
one  loves  me.  He's  the  Rock  of  Ages — in  a  storm  of  meanness 
that's  driving  me  mad.  ...  it  will  drive  me  mad." 

All  evening  she  sang  Scotch  ballads  to  Kennicott,  and  when 
she  noticed  that  he  was  chewing  an  unlighted  cigar  she  smiled 
maternally  at  his  secret. 

She  could  not  escape  asking  (in  the  exact  words  and  mental 
intonations  which  a  thousand  million  women,  dairy  wencfies 
and  mischief-making  queens,  had  used  before  her,  and  which 
a  million  million  women  will  know  hereafter),  "Was  it  all 
a  horrible  mistake,  my  marrying  him?  "  She  quieted  the 
doubt — without  answering  it. 


106  MAIN   STREET 


IV 

Kennicott  had  taken  her  north  to  Lac-qui-Mcurt,  in  the  Big 
Woods.  It  was  the  entrance  to  a  Chippewa  Indian  reservation, 
a  sandy  settlement  among  Norway  pines  on  the  shore  of  a 
huge  snow-glaring  lake.  She  had  her  first  sight  of  his  mother, 
except  the  glimpse  at  the  wedding.  Mrs.  Kennicott  had  a 
hushed  and  delicate  breeding  which  dignified  her  woodeny  over- 
scrubbed  cottage  with  its  worn  hard  cushions  in  heavy  rockers. 
She  had  never  lost  the  child's  miraculous  power  of  wonder. 
She  asked  questions  about  books  and  cities.  She  murmured: 

"  Will  is  a  dear  hard-working  boy  but  he's  inclined  to  be  too 
serious,  and  you've  taught  him  how  to  play.  Last  night  I 
heard  you  both  laughing  about  the  old  Indian  basket-seller. 
and  I  just  lay  in  bed  and  enjoyed  your  happiness." 

Carol  forgot  her  misery-hunting  in  this  solidarity  of  family 
life.  She  could  depend  upon  them;  she  was  not  battling  alone. 
Watching  Mrs.  Kennicott  flit  about  the  kitchen  she  was  better 
able  to  translate  Kennicott  himself.  He  was  matter-of-fact, 
yes,  and  incurably  mature.  He  didn't  really  play;  he  let  Carol 
jplay  with  him.  But  he  had  his  mother's  genius  for  trusting, 
her  disdain  for  prying,  her  sure  integrity. 

From  the  two  days  at  Lac-qui-Meurt  Carol  drew  confidence 
in  herself,  and  she  returned  to  Gopher  Prairie  in  a  throbbing 
calm  like  those  golden  drugged  seconds  when,  because  he  « 
for  an  instant  free  from  pain,  a  sick  man  revels  in  living. 

A  bright  hard  winter  day,  the  wind  shrill,  black  and  silver 
clouds  booming  across  the  sky,  everything  in  panicky  motion 
during  the  brief  light.  They  struggled  against  the  surf  of  wind, 
through  deep  snow.  Kennicott  was  cheerful.  He  hailed  Loren 
Wheeler,  "  Behave  yourself  while  I  been  away?  "  The  editor 
bellowed,  "  B'  gosh  you  stayed  so  long  that  all  your  patients 
have  got  well!  "  and  importantly  took  notes  for  the  Dauntless 
about  their  journey.  Jackson  Elder  cried,  "  Hey,  folks!  How's 
tricks  up  North?  "  Mrs.  McGanum  waved  to  them  from  her 
porch. 

"  They're  glad  to  see  us.  We  mean  something  here.  These 
people  are  satisfied.  Why  can't  I  be?  But  ca*  I  sit  back 
all  my  life  and  be  satisfied  with  *  Hey,  folks '?  They  want 
shouts  on  Main  Street,  and  I  want  violins  in  a  paneled  rooaa 
Why ?  » 


MAIN   STREET  107 


Vida  Sherwin  ran  in  after  school  a  dozen  times.  She  was 
tactful,  torrentially  anecdotal.  She  had  scuttled  about  town 
and  plucked  compliments:  Mrs.  Dr.  Westlake  had  pronounced 
Carol  a  "  very  sweet,  bright,  cultured  young  woman,"  and 
Brad  Bemis,  the  tinsmith  at  Clark's  Hardware  Store,  had  de 
clared  that  she  was  "  easy  to  work  for  and  awful  easy  to 
look  at." 

But  Carol  could  not  yet  take  her  in.  She  resented  this 
outsider's  knowledge  of  her  shame.  Vida  was  not  too  long 
tolerant.  She  hinted,  "  You're  a  great  brooder,  child.  Buck  up 
now.  The  town's  quit  criticizing  you,  almost  entirely.  Come 
with  me  to  the  Thanatopsis  Club.  They  have  some  of  the 
best  papers,  and  current-events  discussions — so  interesting." 

In  Vida's  demands  Carol  felt  a  compulsion,  but  she  was  too 
listless  to  obey. 

It  was  Bea  Sorenson  who  was  really  her  confidante. 

However  charitable  toward  the  Lower  Classes  she  may  have 
thought  herself,  Carol  had  been  reared  to  assume  that  servants 
belong  to  a  distinct  and  inferior  species.  But  she  discovered 
that  Bea  was  extraordinarily  like  girls  she  had  loved  in  college, 
and  as  a  companion  altogether  superior  to  the  young  matrons 
of  the  Jolly  Seventeen.  Daily  they  became  more  frankly  two 
girls  playing  at  housework.  Bea  artlessly  considered  Carol 
the  most  beautiful  and  accomplished  lady  in  the  country;  she 
was  always  shrieking,  "  My,  dot's  a  swell  hat!  "  or,  "  Ay  t'ink 
all  dese  ladies  yoost  die  when  dey  see  how  elegant  you  do 
your  hair!  "  But  it  was  not  the  humbleness  of  a  servant,  nor 
the  hypocrisy  of  a  slave;  it  was  the  admiration  of  Freshman 
for  Junior. 

They  made  out  the  day's  menus  together.  Though  they 
began  with  propriety,  Carol  sitting  by  the  kitchen  table  and 
Bea  at  the  sink  or  blacking  the  stove,  the  conference  was 
likely  to  end  with  both  of  them  by  the  table,  while  Bea  gurgled 
over  the  ice-man's  attempt  to  kiss  her,  or  Carol  admitted, 
"Everybody  knows  that  the  doctor  is  lots  more  clever  than 
Dr.  McGanum."  When  Carol  came  in  from  marketing,  Bea 
plunged  into  the  hall  to  take  off  her  coat,  rub  her  frosted 
hands,  and  ask,  "  Vos  dere  lots  of  folks  up- town  today?  " 

This  was  the  welcome  upon  which  Carol  depended. 


MAIN   STREET 


VI 

Through  her  weeks  of  cowering  there  was  no  change  in 
her  surface  life.  No  one  save  Vida  was  aware  of  her  agonizing. 
On  her  most  despairing  days  she  chatted  to  women  on  the 
street,  in  stores.  But  without  the  protection  of  Kennicott's 
presence  she  did  not  go  to  the  Jolly  Seventeen;  she  delivered 
herself  to  the  judgment  of  the  town  only  when  she  went  shop 
ping  and  on  the  ritualistic  occasions  of  formal  afternoon  calls, 
when  Mrs.  Lyman  Cass  or  Mrs.  George  Edwin  Mott,  with 
clean  gloves  and  minute  handkerchiefs  and  sealskin  card-cases 
and  countenances  of  frozen  approbation,  sat  on  the  edges  of 
chairs  and  inquired,  "  Do  you  find  Gopher  Prairie  pleasing?  " 
When  they  spent  evenings  of  social  profit-and-loss  at  the  Hay- 
docks'  or  the  Dyers'  she  hid  behind  Kennicott,  playing  the 
simple  bride. 

Now  she  was  unprotected.  Kennicott  had  taken  a  patient 
to  Rochester  for  an  operation.  He  would  be  away  for  two 
or  three  days.  She  had  not  minded;  she  would  loosen  the 
matrimonial  tension  and  be  a  fanciful  girl  for  a  time.  But 
now  that  he  was  gone  the  house  was  listeningly  empty.  Bea 
was  out  this  afternoon — presumably  drinking  coffee  and  talk 
ing  about  "fellows"  with  her  cousin  Tina.  It  was 'the  day 
for  the  monthly  supper  and  evening-bridge  of  the  Jolly  Seven 
teen,  but  Carol  dared  not  go. 

She  sat  alone. 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  house  was  haunted,  long  before  evening.  Shadows  slipped 
down  the  walls  and  waited  behind  every  chair. 

Did  that  door  move? 

No.  She  wouldn't  go  to  the  Jolly  Seventeen.  She  hadn't 
energy  enough  to  caper  before  them,  to  smile  blandly  at 
Juanita's  rudeness.  Not  today.  But  she  did  want  a  party. 
Now!  If  some  one  would  come  in  this  afternoon,  some  one 
who  liked  her — Vida  or  Mrs.  Sam  Clark  or  old  Mrs.  Champ 
Perry  or  gentle  Mrs.  Dr.  Westlake.  Or  Guy  Pollock!  She'd 
telephone 

No.    That  wouldn't  be  it.    They  must  come  of  themselves. 

Perhaps  they  would. 

Why  not? 

She'd  have  tea  ready,  anyway.  If  they  came — splendid. 
If  not — what  did  she  care?  She  wasn't  going  to  yield  to  the 
village  and  let  down;  she  was  going  to  keep  up  a  belief  in  the 
rite  of  tea,  to  which  she  had  always  looked  forward  as  the 
symbol  of  a  leisurely  fine  existence.  And  it  would  be  just 
as  much  fun,  even  if  it  was  so  babyish,  to  have  tea  by  herself 
and  pretend  that  she  was  entertaining  clever  men.  It 
would! 

She  turned  the  shining  thought  into  action.  She  bustled  to 
the  kitchen,  stoked  the  wood-range,  sang  Schumann  while  she 
boiled  the  kettle,  warmed  up  raisin  cookies  on  a  newspaper 
spread  on  the  rack  in  the  oven.  She  scampered  up-stairs  to 
bring  down  her  filmiest  tea-cloth.  She  arranged  a  silver  tray. 
She  proudly  carried  it  into  the  living-room  and  set  it  on  the 
long  cherrywood  table,  pushing  aside  a  hoop  of  embroidery, 
a  volume  of  Conrad  from  the  library,  copies  of  the  Saturday 
Evening  Post,  the  Literary  Digest,  and  Kennicott's  National 
Geographic  Magazine. 

She  moved  the  tray  back  and  forth  and  regarded  the  effect. 
She  shook  her  head.  She  busily  unfolded  the  sewing-table, 
set  it  in  the  bay-window,  patted  the  tea-cloth  to  smoothness, 

109 


110  MAIN   STREET 

moved  the  tray.  "  Some  time  I'll  have  a  mahogany  tea-table," 
she  said  happily. 

She  had  brought  in  two  cups,  two  plates.  For  herself,  a 
straight  chair,  but  for  the  guest  the  big  wing-chair,  which  she 
pantingly  tugged  to  the  table. 

She  had  finished  all  the  preparations  she  could  think  of.  She 
sat  and  waited.  She  listened  for  the  door-bell,  the  telephone. 
Her  eagerness  was  stilled.  Her  hands  drooped. 

Surely  Vida  Sherwin  would  hear  the  summons. 

She  glanced  through  the  bay-window.  Snow  was  sifting  ovei 
the  ridge  of  the  Rowland  house  like  sprays  of  water  from  a 
hose.  The  wide  yards  across  the  street  were  gray  with  moving 
eddies.  The  black  trees  shivered.  The  roadway  was  gashed 
with  ruts  of  ice. 

She  looked  at  the  extra  cup  and  plate.  She  looked  at 
the  wing-chair.  It  was  so  empty. 

The  tea  was  cold  in  the  pot.  With  wearily  dipping  finger 
tip  she  tested  it.  Yes.  Quite  cold.  She  couldn't  wait  any 
longer. 

The  cup  across  from  her  was  icily  clean,  glisteningly  empty. 

Simply  absurd  to  wait.  She  poured  her  own  cup  of  tea.  She 
sat  and  stared  at  it.  What  was  it  she  was  going  to  do  now? 
Oh  yes;  how  idiotic;  take  a  lump  of  sugar. 

She  didn't  want  the  beastly  tea. 

She  was  springing  up.    She  was  on  the  couch,  sobbing. 


She  was  thinking  more  sharply  than  she  had  for  weeks. 
She  reverted  to  her  resolution  to  change  the  town — awaken 
it,  prod  it,  "  reform  "  it.  What  if  they  were  wolves  instead 
of  lambs?  They'd  eat  her  all  the  sooner  if  she  was  meek  to 
them.  Fight  or  be  eaten.  It  was  easier  to  change  the  town 
completely  than  to  conciliate  it!  She  could  not  take  their  point 
of  view;  it  was  a  negative  thing;  an  intellectual  squalor;  a 
swamp  of  prejudices  and  fears.  She  would  have  to  make  them 
take  hers.  She  was  not  a  Vincent  de  Paul,  to  govern  and 
mold  a  people.  What  of  that?  The  tiniest  change  in  their 
distrust  of  beauty  would  be  the  beginning  of  the  end;  a  seed 
to  sprout  and  some  day  with  thickening  roots  to  crack  their 
wall  of  mediocrity.  If  she  could  not,  as  she  desired,  do  a 
great  thing  nobly  and  with,  laughter,  yet  she  need  not  be  con 


MAIN   STREET  ill 

lent  with  village  nothingness.  She  would  plant  one  seed  in  the 
blank  wall. 

Was  she  just?  Was  it  merely  a  blank  wall,  this  town  which 
to  three  thousand  and  more  people  was  the  center  of  the 
universe?  Hadn't  she,  returning  from  Lac-qui-Meurt,  felt  the 
heartiness  of  their  greetings?  No.  The  ten  thousand  Gopher 
Prairies  had  no  monopoly  of  greetings  and  friendly  hands.  Sam 
Clark  was  no  more  loyal  than  girl  librarians  she  knew  in  St. 
Paul,  the  people  she  had  met  in  Chicago.  And  those  others 
had  so  much  that  Gopher  Prairie  complacently  lacked — the 
world  of  gaiety  and  adventure,  of  music  and  the  integrity  of 
bronze,  of  remembered  mists  from  tropic  isles  and  Paris  nights 
and  the  walls  of  Bagdad,  of  industrial  justice  and  a  God  who 
spake  not  in  doggerel  hymns. 

One  seed.  Which  seed  it  was  did  not  matter.  All  knowl 
edge  and  freedom  were  one.  But  she  had  delayed  so  long  in 
finding  that  seed.  Could  she  do  something  with  this  Thana- 
topsis  Club?  Or  should  she  make  her  house  so  charming  that 
it  would  be  an  influence?  She'd  make  Kennicott  like  poetry. 
That  was  it,  for  a  beginning!  She  conceived  so  clear  a  picture 
of  their  bending  over  large  fair  pages  by  the  fire  (in  a  non 
existent  fireplace)  that  the  spectral  presences  slipped  away. 
Doors  no  longer  moved;  curtains  were  not  creeping  shadows 
but  lovely  dark  masses  in  the  dusk;  and  when  Bea  came  home 
Carol  was  singing  at  the  piano  which  she  had  not  touched  for 
many  days. 

Their  supper  was  the  feast  of  two  girls.  Carol  was  in  the 
dining-room,  in  a  frock  of  black  satin  edged  with  gold,  and 
Bea,  in  blue  gingham  and  an  apron,  dined  in  the  kitchen;  but 
the  door  was  open  between,  and  Carol  was  inquiring,  "  Did 
you  see  any  ducks  in  Dahl's  window?  "  and  Bea  chanting, 
"  No,  ma'am.  Say,  ve  have  a  svell  time,  dis  afternoon.  Tina 
she  have  coffee  and  knackebrod,  and  her  fella  vos  dere,  and 
ve  yoost  laughed  and  laughed,  and  her  fella  say  he  vos  president 
and  he  going  to  make  me  queen  of  Finland,  and  Ay  stick  a 
fedder  in  may  hair  and  say  Ay  bane  going  to  go  to  var — oh, 
ve  vos  so  foolish  and  ve  laugh  so!  " 

When  Carol  sat  at  the  piano  again  she  did  not  think  of 
her  husband  but  of  the  book-drugged  hermit,  Guy  Pollock. 
She  wished  that  Pollock  would  come  calling. 

"  If  a  girl  really  kissed  him,  he'd  creep  out  of  his  den  and 
be  human.  If  Will  were  as  literate  as  Guy,  or  Guy  were  as 


112  MAIN   STREET 

executive  as  Will,  I  think  I  could  endure  even  Gopher  Prairie. 

"  It's  so  hard  to  mother  Will.  I  could  be  maternal  with 
Guy.  Is  that  what  I  want,  something  to  mother,  a  man  or 
a  baby  or  a  town?  I  will  have  a  baby.  Some  day.  But  to 
have  him  isolated  here  all  his  receptive  years 

"  And  so  to  bed. 

"  Have  I  found  my  real  level  in  Bea  and  kitchen-gossip? 

"  Oh,  I  do  miss  you,  Will.  But  it  will  be  pleasant  to  turn 
over  in  bed  as  often  as  I  want  to,  without  worrying  about 
waking  you  up. 

"  Am  I  really  this  settled  thing  called  a  '  married  woman  ? 
I  feel  so  unmarried  tonight.  So  free.  To  think  that  there 
was  once  a  Mrs.  Kennicott  who  let  herself  worry  over  a  town 
called  Gopher  Prairie  when  there  was  a  whole  world  outside 
it! 

"  Of  course  Will  is  going  to  like  poetry." 


in 

A  black  February  day.  Clouds  hewn  of  ponderous  timber 
weighing  down  on  the  earth;  an  irresolute  dropping  of  snow 
specks  upon  the  trampled  wastes.  Gloom  but  no  veiling  of 
angularity.  The  lines  of  roofs  and  sidewalks  sharp  and  in 
escapable. 

The  second  day  of  Kennicott's  absence. 

She  fled  from  the  creepy  house  for  a  walk.  It  was  thirty 
below  zero;  too  cold  to  exhilarate  her.  In  the  spaces  between 
houses  the  wind  caught  her.  It  stung,  it  gnawed  at  nose  and 
ears  and  aching  cheeks,  and  she  hastened  from  shelter  to 
shelter,  catching  her  breath  in  the  lee  of  a  barn,  grateful  for 
the  protection  of  a  billboard  covered  with  ragged  posters  show 
ing  layer  under  layer  of  paste-smeared  green  and  streaky  red. 

The  grove  of  oaks  at  the  end  of  the  street  suggested  Indians, 
hunting,  snow-shoes,  and  she  struggled  past  the  earth-banked 
cottages  to  the  open  country,  to  a  farm  and  a  low  hill 
corrugated  with  hard  snow.  In  her  loose  nutria  coat,  seal 
toque,  virginal  cheeks  unmarked  by  lines  of  village  jealousies, 
she  was  as  out  of  place  on  this  dreary  hillside  as  a  scarlet 
tanager  on  an  ice-floe.  She  looked  down  on  Gopher  Prairie. 
The  snow,  stretching  without  break  from  streets  to  devouring 
prairie  beyond,  wiped  out  the  town's  pretense  of  being  a  shelter. 
The  houses  were  black  specks  on  a  white  sheet.  Her  heart 


MAIN   STREET  113 

shivered  with  that  still  loneliness  as  her  body  shivered  with 
the  wind. 

She  ran  back  into  the  huddle  of  streets,  all  the  while  pro 
testing  that  she  wanted  a  city's  yellow  glare  of  shop-windows 
and  restaurants,  or  the  primitive  forest  with  hooded  furs  and 
a  rifle,  or  a  barnyard  warm  and  steamy,  noisy  with  hens  and 
cattle,  certainly  not  these  dun  houses,  these  yards  choked  with 
winter  ash-piles,  these  roads  of  dirty  snow  and  clotted  frozen 
mud.  The  zest  of  winter  was  gone.  Three  months  more,  till 
May,  the  cold  might  drag  on,  with  the  snow  ever  filthier,  the 
weakened  body  less  resistent.  She  wondered  why  the  good 
citizens  insisted  on  adding  the  chill  of  prejudice,  why  they 
did  not  make  the  houses  of  their  spirits  more  warm  and  frivo 
lous,  like  the  wise  chatterers  of  Stockholm  and  Moscow. 

She  circled  the  outskirts  of  the  town  and  viewed  the  slum 
of  "  Swede  Hollow."  Wherever  as  many  as  three  houses  are 
gathered  there  will  be  a  slum  of  at  least  one  house.  In 
Gopher  Prairie,  the  Sam  Clarks  boasted,  "  you  don't  get  any  of 
this  poverty  that  you  find  in  cities — always  plenty  of  work — 
no  need  of  charity — man  got  to  be  blame  shiftless  if  he  don't 
get  ahead."  But  now  that  the  summer  mask  of  leaves  and 
grass  was  gone,  Carol  discovered  misery  and  dead  hope.  In 
a  shack  of  thin  boards  covered  with  tar-paper  she  saw  the 
washerwoman,  Mrs.  Steinhof,  working  in  gray  steam.  Outside, 
her  six-year-old  boy  chopped  wood.  He  had  a  torn  jacket, 
muffler  of  a  blue  like  skimmed  milk.  His  hands  were  covered 
*ith  red  mittens  through  which  protruded  his  chapped  raw 
knuckles.  He  halted  to  blow  on  them,  to  cry  disinterestedly. 

A  family  of  recently  arrived  Finns  were  camped  in  an  aban 
doned  stable.  A  man  of  eighty  was  picking  up  lumps  of  coal 
along  the  railroad. 

She  did  not  know  what  to  do  about  it.  She  felt  that  these 
independent  citizens,  who  had  been  taught  that  they  belonged 
to  a  democracy,  would  resent  her  trying  to  play  Lady 
Bountiful. 

She  lost  her  loneliness  in  the  activity  of  the  village  indus 
tries — the  railroad-yards  with  a  freight-train  switching,  the 
wheat-elevator,  oil-tanks,  a  slaughter-house  with  blood-marks 
on  the  snow,  the  creamery  with  the  sleds  of  farmers  and  piles 
of  milk-cans,  an  unexplained  stone  hut  labeled  "  Danger — 
Powder  Stored  Here."  The  jolly  tombstone-yard,  where  a 
Utilitarian  sculptor  in  a  red  calfskin  overcoat  whistled  as  he 


U4  MAIN    STREET 

hammered  the  shiniest  of  granite  headstones.  Jackson  Elder's 
small  planing-mill,  with  the  smell  of  fresh  pine  shavings  and 
the  burr  of  circular  saws.  Most  important,  the  Gopher  Prairie 
Flour  and  Milling  Company,  Lyman  Cass  president.  Its  win 
dows  were  blanketed  with  flour-dust,  but  it  was  the  most 
stirring  spot  in  town.  Workmen  were  wheeling  barrels  of  flour 
into  a  box-car;  a  farmer  sitting  on  sacks  of  wheat  in  a  bob 
sled  argued  with  the  wheat-buyer;  machinery  within  the  mill 
boomed  and  whined;  water  gurgled  in  the  ice- freed  mill-race. 

The  clatter  was  a  relief  to  Carol  after  months  of  smug 
houses.  She  wished  that  she  could  work  in  the  mill;  that 
she  did  not  belong  to  the  caste  of  professional-man's-wife. 

She  started  for  home,  through  the  small  slum.  Before  a 
tar-paper  shack,  at  a  gateless  gate,  a  man  in  rough  brown 
dogskin  coat  and  black  plush  cap  with  lappets  was  watching 
her.  His  square  face  was  confident,  his  foxy  mustache  was 
picaresque.  He  stood  erect,  his  hands  in  his  side-pockets,  his 
pipe  puffing  slowly.  He  was  forty-five  or  -six,  perhaps. 

"  How  do,  Mrs.  Kennicott,"  he  drawled. 

She  recalled  him — the  town  handyman,  who  had  repaired 
their  furnace  at  the  beginning  of  winter. 

"  Oh,  how  do  you  do,"  she  fluttered. 

"  My  name  's  Bjornstam.  '  The  Red  Swede '  they  call  me. 
Remember?  Always  thought  I'd  kind  of  like  to  say  howdy 
to  you  again." 

"  Ye — yes I've  been  exploring  the  outskirts  of  town." 

"Yump.  Fine  mess.  No  sewage,  no  street  cleaning,  and 
the  Lutheran  minister  and  the  priest  represent  the  arts  and 
sciences.  Well,  thunder,  we  submerged  tenth  down  here  in 
Swede  Hollow  are  no  worse  off  than  you  folks.  Thank  God, 
we  don't  have  to  go  and  purr  at  Juanity  Haydock  at  the 
Jolly  Old  Seventeen." 

The  Carol  who  regarded  herself  as  completely  adaptable 
was  uncomfortable  at  being  chosen  as  comrade  by  a  pipe- 
iceking  odd-job  man.  Probably  he  was  one  of  her  husband's 
patients.  But  she  must  keep  her  dignity. 

"Yes,  even  the  Jolly  Seventeen  isn't  always  so  exciting. 
It's  very  cold  again  today,  isn't  it.  Well " 

Bjornstam  was  not  respectfully  valedictory.  He  showed  no 
signs  of  pulling  a  forelock.  His  eyebrows  moved  as  though 
they  had  a  life  of  their  own.  With  a  subgrin  he  went  on: 

"  Maybe  I  hadn't  ought  to  talk  about  Mrs.  Haydock  and 


MAIN   STREET  113 

her  Solemcholy  Seventeen  in  that  fresh  way.  I  suppose  I'd 
be  tickled  to  death  if  I  was  invited  to  sit  in  with  that  gang. 
I'm  what  they  call  a  pariah,  I  guess.  I'm  the  town  badman, 
Mrs.  Kennicott:  town  atheist,  and  I  suppose  I  must  be  an 
anarchist,  too.  Everybody  who  doesn't  love  the  bankers  and 
the  Grand  Old  Republican  Party  is  an  anarchist." 

Carol  had  unconsciously  slipped  from  her  attitude  of  de 
parture  into  an  attitude  of  listening,  her  face  full  toward  him, 
her  muff  lowered.  She  fumbled: 

"  Yes,  I  suppose  so."  Her  own  grudges  came  in  a  flood.  "  I 
don't  see  why  you  shouldn't  criticize  the  Jolly  Seventeen  if 
you  want  to.  They  aren't  sacred." 

"  Oh  yes,  they  are!  The  dollar-sign  has  chased  the  crucifix 
clean  off  the  map.  But  then,  I've  got  no  kick.  I  do  what 
I  please,  and  I  suppose  I  ought  to  let  them  do  the  same." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  saying  you're  a  pariah?  " 

"  I'm  poor,  and  yet  I  don't  decently  envy  the  rich.  I'm  an 
old  bach.  I  make  enough  money  for  a  stake,  and  then  I  sit 
around  by  myself,  and  shake  hands  with  myself,  and  have  a 
smoke,  and  read  history,  and  I  don't  contribute  to  the  wealth 
of  Brother  Elder  or  Daddy  Cass." 

"  You I  fancy  you  read  a  good  deal." 

"  Yep.  In  a  hit-or-a-miss  way.  I'll  tell  you:  I'm  a  lone 
wolf.  I  trade  horses,  and  saw  wood,  and  work  in  lumber-camps 
— I'm  a  first-rate  swamper.  Always  wished  I  could  go  to 
college.  Though  I  s'pose  I'd  find  it  pretty  slow,  and  they'd 
probably  kick  me  out." 

"  You  really  are  a  curious  person,  Mr. " 

"  Bjornstam.  Miles  Bjornstam.  Half  Yank  and  half  Swede. 
Usually  known  as  '  that  damn  lazy  big-mouthed  calamity-howler 
that  ain't  satisfied  with  the  way  we  run  things.'  No,  I  ain't 
curious — whatever  you  mean  by  that!  I'm  just  a  bookworm. 
Probably  too  much  reading  for  the  amount  of  digestion  I've 
got.  Probably  half-baked.  I'm  going  to  get  in  *  half-baked ' 
first,  and  beat  you  to  it,  because  it's  dead  sure  to  be  handed 
to  a  radical  that  wears  jeans!  " 

They  grinned  together.    She  demanded: 

"  You  say  that  the  Jolly  Seventeen  is  stupid.  What  makes 
you  think  so?  " 

"  Oh,  trust  us  borers  into  the  foundation  to  know  about 
your  leisure  class.  Fact,  Mrs.  Kennicott,  I'll  say  that  far  as 
I  can  make  out,  the  only  people  in  this  man's  town  that  do 


Ii6  MAIN    STREET 

have  any  brains — I  don't  mean  ledger-keeping  brains  or  duck- 
hunting  brains  or  baby-spanking  brains,  but  real  imaginative 
brains — are  you  and  me  and  Guy  Pollock  and  the  foreman  at 
the  flour-mill.  He's  a  socialist,  the  foreman.  (Don't  tell 
Lym  Cass  that!  Lym  would  fire  a  socialist  quicker  than  he 
would  a  horse- thief!)  " 

"  Indeed  no,  I  sha'n't  tell  him," 

"  This  foreman  and  I  have  some  great  set-to's.  He's  a 
regular  old-line  party-member.  Too  dogmatic.  Expects  to 
reform  everything  from  deforestration  to  nosebleed  by  saying 
phrases  like  '  surplus  value/  Like  reading  the  prayer-book. 
But  same  time,  he's  a  Plato  J.  Aristotle  compared  with  people 
like  Ezry  Stowbody  or  Professor  Mott  or  Julius  Flickerbaugh." 

"  It's  interesting  to  hear  about  him." 

He  dug  his  toe  into  a  drift,  like  a  schoolboy.  "  Rats.  You 
mean  I  talk  too  much.  Well,  I  do,  when  I  get  hold  of  some 
body  like  you.  You  probably  want  to  run  along  and  keep 
your  nose  from  freezing." 

"  Yes,  I  must  go,  I  suppose.  But  tell  me:  Why  did  you 
leave  Miss  Sherwin,  of  the  high  school,  out  of  your  list  of  the 
town  intelligentsia?  " 

"  I  guess  maybe  she  does  belong  in  it.  From  all  I  can  hear 
she's  in  everything  and  behind  everything  that  looks  like  a 
reform — lot  more  than  most  folks  realize.  She  lets  Mrs. 
Reverend  Warren,  the  president  of  this-here  Thanatopsis  Club, 
think  she's  running  the  works,  but  Miss  Sherwin  is  the  secret 
boss,  and  nags  all  the  easy-going  dames  into  doing  something. 

But  way  I  figure  it  out You  see,  I'm  not  interested  in  these 

dinky  reforms.  Miss  Sherwin's  trying  to  repair  the  holes  in 
this  barnacle-covered  ship  of  a  town  by  keeping  busy  bailing 
out  the  water.  And  Pollock  tries  to  repair  it  by  reading  poetry 
to  the  crew!  Me,  I  want  to  yank  it  up  on  the  ways,  and  fire 
the  poor  bum  of  a  shoemaker  that  built  it  so  it  sails  crooked, 
and  have  it  rebuilt  right,  from  the  keel  up." 

"  Yes — that — that  would  be  better.  But  I  must  run  home. 
My  poor  nose  is  nearly  frozen." 

"  Say,  you  better  come  in  and  get  warm,  and  see  what  an 
old  bach's  shack  is  like." 

She  looked  doubtfully  at  him,  at  the  low  shanty,  the  yard 
that  was  littered  with  cord-wood,  moldy  planks,  a  hoopless 
wash-tub.  She  was  disquieted,  but  Bjornstam  did  not  give  hei 
the  opDortunity  to  be  delicate.  He  flung  out  his  hand  in  & 


MAIN   STREET  117 

welcoming  gesture  which  assumed  that  she  was  her  own  coun 
selor,  that  she  was  not  a  Respectable  Married  Woman  but  fully 
a  human  being.  With  a  shaky,  "  Well,  just  a  moment,  to 
warm  my  nose,"  she  glanced  down  the  street  to  make  sure 
that  she  was  not  spied  on,  and  bolted  toward  the  shanty. 

She  remained  for  one  hour,  and  never  had  she  known  a  more 
considerate  host  than  the  Red  Swede. 

He  had  but  one  room:  bare  pine  floor,  small  work-bench, 
wall  bunk  with  amazingly  neat  bed,  frying-pan  and  ash- 
stippled  coffee-pot  on  the  shelf  behind  the  pot-bellied  cannon- 
ball  stove,  backwoods  chairs — one  constructed  from  half  a 
barrel,  one  from  a  tilted  plank — and  a  row  of  books  incredibly 
assorted;  Byron  and  Tennyson  and  Stevenson,  a  manual  of 
gas-engines,  a  book  by  Thorstein  Veblen,  and  a  spotty  treatise 
on  "  The  Care,  Feeding,  Diseases,  and  Breeding  of  Poultry 
and  Cattle." 

There  was  but  one  picture — a  magazine  color-plate  of  a 
steep-roofed  village  in  the  Harz  Mountains  which  suggested 
kobolds  and  maidens  with  golden  hair. 

Bjornstam  did  not  fuss  over  her.  He  suggested,  "  Might 
throw  open  your  coat  and  put  your  feet  up  on  the  box  in  front 
of  the  stove."  He  tossed  his  dogskin  coat  into  the  bunk, 
lowered  himself  into  the  barrel  chair,  and  droned  on: 

"  Yeh,  I'm  probably  a  yahoo,  but  by  gum  I  do  keep  my 
independence  by  doing  odd  jobs,  and  that's  more  'n  these  polite 
cusses  like  the  clerks  in  the  banks  do.  When  I'm  rude  to  some 
slob,  it  may  be  partly  because  I  don't  know  better  (and  God 
knows  I'm  not  no  authority  on  trick  forks  and  what  pants  you 
wear  with  a  Prince  Albert),  but  mostly  it's  because  I  mean 
something.  I'm  about  the  only  man  in  Johnson  County  that 
remembers  the  joker  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  about 
Americans  being  supposed  to  have  the  right  to  *  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.' 

"I  meet  old  Ezra  Stowbody  on  the  street.  He  looks  at 
me  like  he  wants  me  to  remember  he's  a  highmuckamuck  and 
worth  two  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  he  says,  '  Uh,  Bjorn- 
quist ' 

"  'Bjornstam's  my  name,  Ezra/  I  says.  He  knows  my  name, 
all  rightee. 

"  '  Well,  whatever  your  name  is/  he  says, '  I  understand  you 
have  a  gasoline  saw.  I  want  you  to  come  around  and  saw 
up  four  cords  of  maple  for  me,'  he  says. 


u8  MAIN   STREET 

" l  So  you  like  my  looks,  eh?  '  I  says,  kind  of  innocent. 

"  '  What  difference  does  that  make?  Want  you  to  saw  that 
wood  before  Saturday/  he  says,  real  sharp.  Common  work 
man  going  and  getting  fresh  with  a  fifth  of  a  million  dollars 
all  walking  around  in  a  hand-me-down  fur  coat! 

" '  Here's  the  difference  it  makes,'  I  says,  just  to  devil  him. 
'  How  do  you  know  I  like  your  looks?  '  Maybe  he  didn't  look 
sore!  l  Nope/  I  says,  ' thinking  it  all  over,  I  don't  like  your 
application  for  a  loan.  Take  it  to  another  bank,  only  there 
ain't  any,'  I  says,  and  I  walks  off  on  him. 

"  Sure.  Probably  I  was  surly — and  foolish.  But  I  figured 
there  had  to  be  one  man  in  town  independent  enough  to  sass 
the  banker!  " 

He  hitched  out  of  his  chair,  made  coffee,  gave  Carol  a 
cup,  and  talked  on,  half  defiant  and  half  apologetic,  half  wist 
ful  for  friendliness  and  half  amused  by  her  surprise  at  the 
discovery  that  there  was  a  proletarian  philosophy. 

At  the  door,  she  hinted: 

"  Mr.  Bjornstam,  if  you  were  I,  would  you  worry  when 
people  thought  you  were  affected?  " 

"  Huh?  Kick  'em  in  the  face!  Say,  if  I  were  a  sea-gull, 
and  all  over  silver,  think  I'd  care  what  a  pack  of  dirty  seals 
thought  about  my  flying?  " 

It  was  not  the  wind  at  her  back,  it  was  the  thrust  of  Bjorn- 
stam's  scorn  which  carried  her  through  town.  She  faced 
Juanita  Hay  dock,  cocked  her  head  at  Maud  Dyer's  brief  nod, 
and  came  home  to  Bea  radiant.  She  telephoned  Vida  Sherwin 
to  "  run  over  this  evening."  She  lustily  played  Tschaikowsky — 
the  virile  chords  an  echo  of  the  red  laughing  philosopher  of 
the  tar-paper  shack. 

(When  she  hinted  to  Vida,  "Isn't  there  a  man  here  who 
amuses  himself  by  being  irreverent  to  the  village  gods —  Bjorn 
stam,  some  such  a  name?  "  the  reform-leader  said  "  Bjornstam? 
Oh  yes.  Fixes  things.  He's  awfully  impertinent.") 


IV 

Kennicott  had  returned  at  midnight.  At  breakfast  he  said 
four  several  times  that  he  had  missed  her  every  moment. 

On  her  way  to  market  Sam  Clark  hailed  her,  "  The  top  o'  the 
mornin'  to  yez!  Going  to  stop  and  pass  the  time  of  day  mit 
s«unl?  Warmer,  eh?  What'd  the  doc's  thermometer  say  it 


MAIN   STREET  119 

was?  Say,  you  folks  better  come  round  and  visit  with  us, 
one  of  these  evenings.  Don't  be  so  dog-gone  proud,  staying  by 
yourselves." 

Champ  Perry  the  pioneer,  wheat-buyer  at  the  elevator, 
stopped  her  in  the  post-office,  held  her  hand  in  his  withered 
paws,  peered  at  her  with  faded  eyes,  and  chuckled,  "  You  are 
so  fresh  and  blooming,  my  dear.  Mother  was  saying  t'other  day 
that  a  sight  of  you  was  better  'n  a  dose  of  medicine." 

In  the  Bon  Ton  Store  she  found  Guy  Pollock  tentatively 
buying  a  modest  gray  scarf.  "  We  haven't  seen  you  for  so 
long,"  she  said.  "  Wouldn't  you  like  to  come  in  and  play  crib- 
bage,  some  evening?  "  As  though  he  meant  it,  Pollock  begged, 
"  May  I,  really?  " 

While  she  was  purchasing  two  yards  of  malines  the  vocal 
Raymie  Wutherspoon  tiptoed  up  to  her,  his  long  sallow  face 
bobbing,  and  he  besought,  "  You've  just  got  to  come  back  to 
my  department  and  see  a  pair  of  patent  leather  slippers  I  set 
aside  for  you." 

In  a  manner  of  more  than  sacerdotal  reverence  he  un 
laced  her  boots,  tucked  her  skirt  about  her  ankles,  slid  on  the 
slippers.  She  took  them. 

"You're  a  good  salesman,"  she  said. 

"  I'm  not  a  salesman  at  all!  I  just  like  elegant  things.  All 
this  is  so  inartistic."  He  indicated  with  a  forlornly  waving 
hand  the  shelves  of  shoe-boxes,  the  seat  of  thin  wood  per 
forated  in  rosettes,  the  display  of  shoe-trees  and  tin  boxes  of 
blacking,  the  lithograph  of  a  smirking  young  woman  with  cherry 
cheeks  who  proclaimed  in  the  exalted  poetry  of  advertising, 
"  My  tootsies  never  got  hep  to  what  pedal  perfection  was  till 
I  got  a  pair  of  clever  classy  Cleopatra  Shoes." 

"  But  sometimes,"  Raymie  sighed,  "  there  is  a  pair  of  dainty 
little  shoes  like 'these,  and  I  set  them  aside  for  some  one  who 
will  appreciate.  When  I  saw  these  I  said  right  away, '  Wouldn't 
it  be  nice  if  they  fitted  Mrs.  Kennicott,'  and  I  meant  to  speak 
to  you  first  chance  I  had.  I  haven't  forgotten  our  jolly  talks 
at  Mrs.  Gurrey's!  " 

That  evening  Guy 'Pollock  came  in  and,  though  Kennicott 
instantly  impressed  him  into  a  cribbage  game,  Carol  was 
again. 


120  MAIN   STREET 


She  did  not,  in  recovering  something  of  her  buoyancy,  forget 
her  determination  to  begin  the  liberalizing  of  Gopher  Prairie 
by  the  easy  and  agreeable  propaganda  of  teaching  Kennicott  to 
enjoy  reading  poetry  in  the  lamplight.  The  campaign  was 
delayed.  Twice  he  suggested  that  they  call  on  neighbors; 
once  he  was  in  the  country.  The  fourth  evening  he  yawned 
pleasantly,  stretched,  and  inquired,  "  Well,  what'll  we  do 
tonight?  Shall  we  go  to  the  movies?  " 

"  I  know  exactly  what  we're  going  to  do.  Now  don't  ask 
questions!  Come  and  sit  down  by  the  table.  There,  are 
you  comfy?  Lean  back  and  forget  you're  a  practical  man, 
and  listen  to  me." 

It  may  be  that  she  had  been  influenced  by  the  managerial 
Vida  Sherwin;  certainly  she  sounded  as  though  she  was  sell 
ing  culture.  But  she  dropped  it  when  she  sat  on  the  couch,  her 
chin  in  her  hands,  a  volume  of  Yeats  on  her  knees,  and  read 
aloud. 

Instantly  she  was  released  from  the  homely  comfort  of  a 
prairie  town.  She  was  in  the  world  of  lonely  things — the  flutter 
of  twilight  linnets,  the  aching  call  of  gulls  along  a  shore 
to  which  the  netted  foam  crept  out  of  darkness,  the  island 
of  Aengus  and  the  elder  gods  and  the  eternal  glories  that 
never  were,  tall  kings  and  women  girdled  with  crusted  gold, 
the  woful  incessant  chanting  and  the 

"  Heh-cha-cha  I"  coughed  Dr.  Kennicott.  She  stopped.  She 
remembered  that  he  was  the  sort  of  person  who  chewed  tobacco. 
She  glared,  while  he  uneasily  petitioned,  "  That's  great  stuff. 
Study  it  in  college?  I  like  poetry  fine — James  Whitcomb 
Riley  and  some  of  Longfellow — this  *  Hiawatha.'  Gosh,  I  wish 
I  could  appreciate  that  highbrow  art  stuff.  But  I  guess  I'm 
too  old  a  dog  to  learn  new  tricks." 

With  pity  for  his  bewilderment,  and  a  certain  desire  to 
giggle,  she  consoled  him,  "  Then  let's  try  some  Tennyson. 
You've  read  him?  " 

"  Tennyson?    You  bet.    Read  him  in  school.    There's  that: 

And  let  there  be  no  (what  is  it?)  of  farewell 
When  I  put  out  to  sea, 
But  let  the 


MAIN   STREET  121 

Well,  I  don't  remember  all  of  it  but 

there's  that  '  I  met  a  little  country  boy  wh( 

remember  exactly  how  it  goes,  but  the  chorus  ends  up,  '  We, 

are  seven.' >: 
"  Yes.    Well Shall  we  try  '  The  Idylls  of  the  King?  ' 

They're  so  full  of  color." 
"  Go  to  it.     Shoot."     But  lie  hastened  to  shelter  himself 

behind  a  cigar. 

She  was  not  transported  to  Camelot.     She  read  with  an 

eye  cocked  on  him,  and  when  she  saw  how  much  he  was 

suffering  she  ran  to  him,  kissed  his  forehead,  cried,  "  You  poor 

forced  tube-rose  that  wants  to  be  a  decent  turnip!  " 

"  Look  here  now,  that  ain't " 

"  Anyway,  I  sha'n't  torture  you  any  longer." 

She  could  not  quite  give  up.    She  read  Kipling,  with  a  great 

deal  of  emphasis: 

There's  a  REGIMENT  a-COMING  down  the 
GRAND  Trunk  ROAD. 

He  tapped  his  foot  to  the  rhythm;  he  looked  normal  and 
reassured.  But  when  he  complimented  her,  "  That  was  fine. 
I  don't  know  but  what  you  can  elocute  just  as  good  as  Ella 
Stowbody,"  she  banged  the  book  and  suggested  that  they  were 
not  too  late  for  the  nine  o'clock  show  at  the  movies. 

That  was  her  last  effort  to  harvest  the  April  wind,  to  teach 
divine  unhappiness  by  a  correspondence  course,  to  buy  the 
lilies  of  Avalon  and  the  sunsets  of  Cockaigne  in  tin  cans  at 
Ole  Jenson's  Grocery. 

But  the  fact  is  that  at  the  motion-pictures  she  discovered 
herself  laughing  as  heartily  as  Kennicott  at  the  humor  of  an 
actor  who  stuffed  spaghetti  down  a  woman's  evening  frock. 
For  a  second  she  loathed  her  laughter;  mourned  for  the  day 
when  on  her  hill  by  the  Mississippi  she  had  walked  the  battle 
ments  with  queens.  But  the  celebrated  cinema  jester's  con 
ceit  of  dropping  toads  into  a  soup-plate  flung  her  into  unwill 
ing  tittering,  and  the  afterglow  faded,  the  dead  queens  fled 
through  darkness. 

VI 

She  went  to  the  Jolly  Seventeen's  afternoon  bridge.  She 
nad  learned  the  elements  of  the  game  from  the  Sam  Clarks. 


122  MAIN    STREET 

She  played  quietly  and  reasonably  badly.  She  had  no  opinions 
on  anything  more  polemic  than  woolen  union-suits,  a  topic  on 
which  Mrs.  Rowland  discoursed  for  five  minutes.  She  smiled 
frequently,  and  was  the  complete  canary-bird  in  her  manner 
of  thanking  the  hostess,  Mrs.  Dave  Dyer. 

Her  only  anxious  period  was  during  the  conference  on  hus 
bands. 

The  young  matrons  discussed  the  intimacies  of  domesticity 
with  a  frankness  and  a  minuteness  which  dismayed  Carol. 
Juanita  Hay  dock  communicated  Harry's  method  of  shaving, 
and  his  interest  in  deer-shooting.  Mrs.  Gougerling  reported 
fully,  and  with  some  irritation,  her  husband's  inappreciation 
of  liver  and  bacon.  Maud  Dyer  chronicled  Dave's  digestive 
disorders;  quoted  a  recent  bedtime  controversy  with  him  in 
regard  to  Christian  Science,  socks  and  the  sewing  of  buttons 
upon  vests;  announced  that  she  "  simply  wasn't  going  to  stand 
his  always  pawing  girls  when  he  went  and  got  crazy- jealous  if 
a  man  just  danced  with  her  ";  and  rather  more  than  sketched 
Dave's  varieties  of  kisses. 

So  meekly  did  Carol  give  attention,  so  obviously  was  she  at 
last  desirous  of  being  one  of  them,  that  they  looked  on  her 
fondly,  and  encouraged  her  to  give  such  details  of  her  honey 
moon  as  might  be  of  interest.  She  was  embarrassed  rather 
than  resentful.  She  deliberately  misunderstood.  She  talked  of 
Kenmcott's  overshoes  and  medical  ideals  till  they  were 
thoroughly  bored.  They  regarded  her  as  agreeable  but  green. 

Till  the  end  she  labored  to  satisfy  the  inquisition.  She 
bubbled  at  Juanita,  the  president  of  the  club,  that  she  wanted 
to  entertain  them.  "  Only,"  she  said,  "  I  don't  know  that  I 
can  give  you  any  refreshments  as  nice  as  Mrs.  Dyer's  salad, 
or  that  simply  delicious  angel's-food  we  had  at  your  house, 
dear" 

"  Fine!  We  need  a  hostess  for  the  seventeenth  of  March. 
Wouldn't  it  be  awfully  original  if  you  made  it  a  St.  Patrick's 
Day  bridge!  I'll  be  tickled  to  death  to  help  you  with  it. 
I'm  glad  you've  learned  to  play  bridge.  At  first  I  didn't  hardly 
know  if  you  were  going  to  like  Gopher  Prairie.  Isn't  it  dandy 
that  you've  settled  down  to  being  homey  with  us!  Maybe 
we  aren't  as  highbrow  as  the  Cities,  but  we  do  have  the  daisiest 
times  and — oh,  we  go  swimming  in  summer,  and  dances  and — 
oh,  lots  of  good  times.  If  folks  will  just  take  us  as  we  are, 
/  think  we're  a  pretty  good  bunch  1  " 


MAIN   STREET  123 

"  I'm  sure  of  it.  Thank  you  so  much  for  the  idea  about 
having  a  St.  Patrick's  Day  bridge." 

"  Oh,  that's  nothing.  I  always  think  the  Jolly  Seventeen 
are  so  good  at  original  ideas.  If  you  knew  these  other  towns, 
Wakamin  and  Joralemon  and  all,  you'd  find  out  and  realize 
that  G.  P.  is  the  liveliest,  smartest  town  in  the  state.  Did 
you  know  that  Percy  Bresnahan,  the  famous  auto  manufac 
turer,  came  from  here  and Yes,  I  think  that  a  St.  Patrick's 

Day  party  would  be  awfully  cunning  and  original,  and  yet  not 
too  queer  or  freaky  or  anything." 


CHAPTER  XI 


SHE  had  often  been  invited  to  the  weekly  meetings  of  th 
Thanatopsis,  the  women's  study  club,  but  she  had  put  it  offn 
The  Thanatopsis  was,  Vida  Sherwin  promised,  "  such  a  cozy 
group,  and  yet  it  puts  you  in  touch  with  all  the  intellectual 
thoughts  that  are  going  on  everywhere." 

Early  in  March  Mrs.  Westlake,  wife  of  the  veteran  physician, 
marched  into  Carol's  living-room  like  an  amiable  old  pussy 
and  suggested,  "  My  dear,  you  really  must  come  to  the 
Thanatopsis  this  afternoon.  Mrs.  Dawson  is  going  to  be  leader 
and  the  poor  soul  is  frightened  to  death.  She  wanted  me  to 
get  you  to  come.  She  says  she's  sure  you  will  brighten  up 
the  meeting  with  your  knowledge  of  books  and  writings. 
^English  poetry  is  our  topic  today.)  So  shoo!  Put  on  your 
Oat!  " 

"  English  poetry?  Really?  I'd  love  to  go.  I  didn't  realize 
you  were  reading  poetry." 

"  Oh,  we're  not  so  slow!  " 

Mrs.  Luke  Dawson,  wife  of  the  richest  man  in  town,  gaped 
at  them  piteously  when  they  appeared.  Her  expensive  frock 
of  beaver-colored  satin  with  rows,  plasters,  and  pendants  of 
solemn  brown  beads  was  intended  for  a  woman  twice  her  size. 
She  stood  wringing  her  hands  in  front  of  nineteen  folding 
chairs,  in  her  front  parlor  with  its  faded  photograph  of  Minne- 
haha  Falls  in  1890,  its  "  colored  enlargement  "  of  Mr.  Dawson, 
its  bulbous  lamp  painted  with  sepia  cows  and  mountains  and 
standing  on  a  mortuary  marble  column. 

She  creaked,  "  O  Mrs.  Kennicott,  I'm  in  such  a  fix.  I'm 
supposed  to  lead  the  discussion,  and  I  wondered  would  you 
come  and  help?  " 

"  What  poet  do  you  take  up  today?  "  demanded  Carol,  in 
her  library  tone  of  "  What  book  do  you  w'sh  to  take  out?  " 

"  Why,  the  English  ones." 

"  Not  all  of  them?  " 

"W-why  yes.    We're  learning  all  of  European  Literature 

124 


MAIN   STREET  125 

this  year.  The  club  gets  such  a  nice  magazine,  Culture  Hints, 
and  we  follow  its  programs.  Last  year  our  subject  was  Men 
and  Women  of  the  Bible,  and  next  year  we'll  probably  take 
up  Furnishings  and  China.  My,  it  does  make  a  body  hustle 
to  keep  up  with  all  these  new  culture  subjects,  but  it  is  im 
proving.  So  will  you  help  us  with  the  discussion  today?  " 

On  her  way  over  Carol  had  decided  to  use  the  Thanatopsis 
as  the  tool  with  which  to  liberalize  the  town.  She  had  im 
mediately  conceived  enormous  enthusiasm;  she  had  chanted, 
"  These  are  the  real  people.  When  the  housewives,  who  bear 
the  burdens,  are  interested  in  poetry,  it  means  something.  I'll 
work  with  them — for  them — anything!  " 

Her  enthusiasm  had  become  watery  even  before  thirteen 
women  resolutely  removed  their  overshoes,  sat  down  meatily, 
ate  peppermints,  dusted  their  fingers,  folded  their  hands,  com 
posed  their  lower  thoughts,  and  invited  the  naked  muse  of 
poetry  to  deliver  her  most  improving  message.  They  had 
greeted  Carol  affectionately,  and  she  tried  to  be  a  daughter 
to  them.  But  she  felt  insecure.  Her  chair  was  out  in  the 
open,  exposed  to  their  gaze,  and  it  was  a  hard-slatted,  quivery, 
slippery  church-parlor  chair,  likely  to  collapse  publicly  and 
without  warning.  It  was  impossible  to  sit  on  it  without  folding 
the  hands  and  listening  piously. 

She  wanted  to  kick  the  chair  and  run.  It  would  make  a 
magnificent  clatter. 

She  saw  that  Vida  Sherwin  was  watching  her.  She  pinched 
her  wrist,  as  though  she  were  a  noisy  child  in  church,  and 
when  she  was  decent  and  cramped  again,  she  listened. 

Mrs.  Dawson  opened  the  meeting  by  sighing,  "  I'm  sure 
I'm  glad  to  see  you  all  here  today,  and  I  understand  that  the 
ladies  have  prepared  a  number  of  very  interesting  papers,  this 
is  such  an  interesting  subject,  the  poets,  they  have  been  an 
inspiration  for  higher  thought,  in  fact  wasn't  it  Reverend  Ben- 
lick  who  said  that  some  of  the  poets  have  been  as  much  an 
inspiration  as  a  good  many  of  the  ministers,  and  so  we  shall 
be  glad  to  hear " 

The  poor  lady  smiled  neuralgically,  panted  with  fright, 
scrabbled  about  the  small  oak  table  to  find  her  eye-glasses, 
and  continued,  "  We  will  first  have  the  pleasure  of  hearing 
Mrs.  Jenson  on  the  subject  '  Shakespeare  and  Milton.' " 

Mrs.  Ole  Jenson  said  that  Shakespeare  was  born  in  1564 
and  died  1616.  He  lived  in  London,  England,  and  in  Stratford- 


126  MAIN    STREET 

on-Avon,  which  many  American  tourists  loved  to  visit,  a  lovely- 
town  with  many  curios  and  old  houses  well  worth  examination. 
Many  people  believed  that  Shakespeare  was  the  greatest  play 
wright  who  ever  lived,  also  a  fine  poet.  Not  much  was  knowq 
about  his  life,  but  after  all  that  did  not  really  make  so  much 
difference,  because  they  loved  to  read  his  numerous  plays, 
several  of  the  best  known  of  which  she  would  now  criticize. 

Perhaps  the  best  known  of  his  plays  was  "  The  Merchant  ol 
Venice,"  having  a  beautiful  love  story  and  a  fine  appreciation 
of  a  woman's  brains,  which  a  woman's  club,  even  those  who 
did  not  care  to  commit  themselves  on  the  question  of  suffrage, 
ought  to  appreciate.  (Laughter.)  Mrs.  Jenson  was  sure  that 
she,  for  one,  would  love  to  be  like  Portia.  The  play  was 
about  a  Jew  named  Shylock,  and  he  didn't  want  his  daughter 
to  marry  a  Venice  gentleman  named  Antonio 

Mrs.  Leonard  Warren,  a  slender,  gray,  nervous  woman, 
president  of  the  Thanatopsis  and  wife  of  the  Congregational 
pastor,  reported  the  birth  and  death  dates  of  Byron,  Scott, 
Moore,  Burns;  and  wound  up: 

"  Burns  was  quite  a  poor  boy  and  he  did  not  enjoy  the 
advantages  we  enjoy  today,  except  for  the  advantages  of  the 
fine  old  Scotch  kirk  where  he  heard  the  Word  of  God  preached 
more  fearlessly  than  even  in  the  finest  big  brick  churches  in 
the  big  and  so-called  advanced  cities  of  today,  but  he  did  not 
have  our  educational  advantages  and  Latin  and  the  other 
treasures  of  the  mind  so  richly  strewn  before  the,  alas,  too 
ofttimes  inattentive  feet  of  our  youth  who  do  not  always 
sufficiently  appreciate  the  privileges  freely  granted  to  every 
American  boy  rich  or  poor.  Burns  had  to  work  hard  and  was 
sometimes  led  by  evil  companionship  into  low  habits.  But 
it  is  morally  instructive  to  know  that  he  was  a  good  student 
and  educated  himself,  in  striking  contrast  to  the  loose  ways 
and  so-called  aristocratic  society-life  of  Lord  Byron,  on  which 
I  have  just  spoken.  And  certainly  though  the  lords  and  earls 
of  his  day  may  have  looked  down  upon  Burns  as  a  humble 
person,  many  of  us  have  greatly  enjoyed  his  pieces  about  the 
mouse  and  other  rustic  subjects,  with  their  message  of  humble 
beauty — I  am  so  sorry  I  have  not  got  the  time  to  quote  some 
of  them." 

Mrs.  George  Edwin  Mott  gave  ten  minutes  to  Tennyson 
and  Browning. 

Mrs.  Nat  Hicks,  a  wry-faced,  curiously  sweet  woman,  so 


MAIN   STREET  127 

awed  by  her  betters  that  Carol  wanted  to  kiss  her,  completed 
the  day's  grim  task  by  a  paper  on  "  Other  Poets."  The  other 
poets  worthy  of  consideration  were  Coleridge,  Wordsworth, 
Shelley,  Gray,  Mrs.  Hemans,  and  Kipling. 

Miss  Ella  Stowbody  obliged  with  a  recital  of  "  The  Reces 
sional  "  and  extracts  from  "  Lalla  Rookh."  By  request,  she 
gave  "  An  Old  Sweetheart  of  Mine  "  as  encore. 

Gopher  Prairie  had  finished  the  poets.  It  was  ready  for 
the  next  week's  labor:  English  Fiction  and  Essays. 

Mrs.  Dawson  besought,  "  Now  we  will  have  a  discussion  of 
the  papers,  and  I  am  sure  we  shall  all  enjoy  hearing  from  one 
who  we  hope  to  have  as  a  new  member,  Mrs.  Kennicott,  who 
with  her  splendid  literary  training  and  all  should  be  able  to 
give  us  many  pointers  and — many  helpful  pointers." 

Carol  had  warned  herself  not  to  be  so  "beastly  super 
cilious."  She  had  insisted  that  in  the  belated  quest  of  these 
work-stained  women  was  an  aspiration  which  ought  to  stir  her 
tears.  "But  they're  so  self-satisfied.  They  think  they're 
doing  Burns  a  favor.  They  don't  believe  they  have  a  '  belated 
quest.'  They're  sure  that  they  have  culture  salted  and  hung 
up."  It  was  out  of  this  stupor  of  doubt  that  Mrs.  Dawson's 
summons  roused  her.  She  was  in  a  panic.  How  could  she 
speak  without  hurting  them? 

Mrs.  Champ  Perry  leaned  over  to  stroke  her  hand  and 
whisper,  "  You  look  tired,  dearie.  Don't  you  talk  unless  you 
want  to." 

Affection  flooded  Carol;  she  was  on  her  feet,  searching  for 
words  and  courtesies: 

"The  only  thing  in  the  way  of  suggestion I  know 

you  are  following  a  definite  program,  but  I  do  wish  that  now 
you've  had  such  a  splendid  introduction,  instead  of  going  on 
with  some  other  subject  next  year  you  could  return  and  take  up 
the  poets  more  in  detail.  Especially  actual  quotations — even 
though  their  lives  are  so  interesting  and,  as  Mrs.  Warren  said, 
so  morally  instructive.  And  perhaps  there  are  several  poets 
not  mentioned  today  whom  it  might  be  worth  while  considering 
— Keats,  for  instance,  and  Matthew  Arnold  and  Rossetti  and 
Swinburne.  Swinburne  would  be  such  a — well,  that  is,  such 
a  contrast  to  life  as  we  all  enjoy  it  in  our  beautiful  Middle- 
west " 

She  saw  that  Mrs.  Leonard  Warren  was  not  with  her.  She 
captured  her  by  innocently  continuing: 


128  MAIN   STREET 

"  Unless  perhaps  Swinburne  tends  to  be,  uh,  more  outspoken 
than  you,  than  we  really  like.  What  do  you  think,  Mrs. 
Warren?  " 

The  pastor's  wife  decided,  "Why,  you've  caught  my  very 
thoughts,  Mrs.  Kennicott.  Of  course  I  have  never  read  Swin 
burne,  but  years  ago,  when  he  was  in  vogue,  I  remember  Mr. 
Warren  saying  that  Swinburne  (or  was  it  Oscar  Wilde?  but 
anyway:)  he  said  that  though  many  so-called  intellectual 
people  posed  and  pretended  to  find  beauty  in  Swinburne,  there 
can  never  be  genuine  beauty  without  the  message  from  the 
heart.  But  at  the  same  time  I  do  think  you  have  an  excellent 
idea,  and  though  we  have  talked  about  Furnishings  and  China 
as  the  probable  subject  for  next  year,  I  believe  that  it  would 
be  nice  if  the  program  committee  would  try  to  work  in  another 
day  entirely  devoted  to  English  poetry!  In  fact,  Madame 
Chairman,  I  so  move  you." 

When  Mrs.  Dawson's  coffee  and  angel's-food  had  helped  them 
to  recover  from  the  depression  caused  by  thoughts  of  Shake 
speare's  death  they  all  told  Carol  that  it  was  a  pleasure  to 
have  her  with  them.  The  membership  committee  retired  to 
the  sitting-room  for  three  minutes  and  elected  her  a  member. 

And  she  stopped  being  patronizing. 

She  wanted  to  be  one  of  them.  They  were  so  loyal  and 
kind.  It  was  they  who  would  carry  out  her  aspiration.  Her 
campaign  against  village  sloth  was  actually  begun!  On  what 
specific  reform  should  she  first  loose  her  army?  During  the 
gossip  after  the  meeting  Mrs.  George  Edwin  Mott  remarked 
that  the  city  hall  seemed  inadequate  for  the  splendid  modern 
Gopher  Prairie.  Mrs.  Nat  Hicks  timidly  wished  that  the 
young  people  could  have  free  dances  there — the  lodge  dances 
were  so  exclusive.  The  city  hall.  That  was  it!  Carol  hurried 
home. 

She  had  not  realized  that  Gopher  Prairie  was  a  city.  From 
Kennicott  she  discovered  that  it  was  legally  organized  with  a 
mayor  and  city-council  and  wards.  She  was  delighted  by  the 
simplicity  of  voting  one's  self  a  metropolis.  Why  not? 

She  was  a  proud  and  patriotic  citizen,  all  evening. 


n 

She  examined  the  city  hall,  next  morning.     She  had  re 
membered  it  only  as  a  bleak  inconspicuousness^   She  found  it 


MAIN   STREET  129 

a  liver-colored  frame  coop  half  a  block  from  Main  Street.  The 
front  was  an  unrelieved  wall  of  clapboards  and  dirty  windows. 
It  had  an  unobstructed  view  of  a  vacant  lot  and  Nat  Hicks's 
tailor  shop.  It  was  larger  than  the  carpenter  shop  beside  it, 
but  not  so  well  built. 

No  one  was  about.  She  walked  into  the  corridor.  On  one 
side  was  the  municipal  court,  like  a  country  school;  on  the 
other,  the  room  of  the  volunteer  fire  company,  with  a  Ford 
hose-cart  and  the  ornamental  helmets  used  in  parades;  at 
the  end  of  the  hall,  a  filthy  two-cell  jail,  now  empty  but  smell 
ing  of  ammonia  and  ancient  sweat.  The  whole  second  story 
was  a  large  unfinished  room  littered  with  piles  of  folding 
chairs,  a  lime-crusted  mortar-mixing  box,  and  the  skeletons  of 
Fourth  of  July  floats  covered  with  decomposing  plaster  shields 
and  faded  red,  white,  and  blue  bunting.  At  the  end  was  an 
abortive  stage.  The  room  was  large  enough  for  the  community 
dances  which  Mrs.  Nat  Hicks  advocated.  But  Carol  was  after 
something  bigger  than  dances. 

In  the  afternoon  she  scampered  to  the  public  library. 

The  library  was  open  three  afternoons  and  four  evenings  a 
week.  It  was  housed  in  an  old  dwelling,  sufficient  but  un 
attractive.  Carol  caught  herself  picturing  pleasanter  reading- 
rooms,  chairs  for  children,  an  art  collection,  a  librarian  young 
enough  to  experiment. 

She  berated  herself,  "  Stop  this  fever  of  reforming  every 
thing!  I  will  be  satisfied  with  the  library!  The  city  hall  is 
enough  for  a  beginning.  And  it's  really  an  excellent  library. 
It's — it  isn't  so  bad.  .  .  .  Is  it  possible  that  I  am  to 
find  dishonesties  and  stupidity  in  every  human  activity  I  en 
counter?  In  schools  and  business  and  government  and  every 
thing?  Is  there  never  any  contentment,  never  any  rest?  " 

She  shook  her  head  as  though  she  were  shaking  off  water, 
and  hastened  into  the  library,  a  young,  light,  amiable  presence, 
modest  in  unbuttoned  fur  coat,  blue  suit,  fresh  organdy  collar, 
and  tan  boots  roughened  from  scuffling  snow.  Miss  Villets 
stared  at  her,  and  Carol  purred,  "  I  was  so  sorry  not  to  see 
you  at  the  Thanatopsis  yesterday.  Vida  said  you  might  come." 

"  Oh.    You  went  to  the  Thanatopsis.    Did  you  enjoy  it?  " 

"  So  much.  Such  good  papers  on  the  poets."  Carol  lied 
resolutely.  "  But  I  did  think  they  should  have  had  you  give 
one  of  the  papers  on  poetry!  " 

"  Well Of  course  I'm  not  one  of  the  bunch  that  seem  to 


i3o  MAIN   STREET 

have  the  time  to  take  and  run  the  club,  and  if  they  prefer 
to  have  papers  on  literature  by  other  ladies  who  have  no 
literary  training — after  all,  why  should  I  complain?  What 
am  I  but  a  city  employee!  " 

"  You're  not!    You're  the  one  person  that  does — that  does — 

oh,  you  do  so  much.    Tell  me,  is  there,  uh Who  are  the 

people  who  control  the  club?  " 

Miss  Villets  emphatically  stamped  a  date  in  the  front  of 
"  Frank  on  the  Lower  Mississippi "  for  a  small  flaxen  boy, 
glowered  at  him  as  though  she  were  stamping  a  warning  on 
his  brain,  and  sighed: 

"  I  wouldn't  put  myself  forward  or  criticize  any  one  for  the 
world,  and  Vida  is  one  of  my  best  friends,  and  such  a  splendid 
teacher,  and  there  is  no  one  in  town  more  advanced  and  in 
terested  in  all  movements,  but  I  must  say  that  no  matter 
who  the  president  or  the  committees  are,  Vida  Sherwin  seems 
to  be  behind  them  all  the  time,  and  though  she  is  always 
telling  me  about  what  she  is  pleased  to  call  my  c  fine  work 
in  the  library/  I  notice  that  I'm  not  often  called  on  for  papers, 
though  Mrs.  Lyman  Cass  once  volunteered  and  told  me  that 
she  thought  my  paper  on  '  The  Cathedrals  of  England '  was 
the  most  interesting  paper  we  had,  the  year  we  took  up  English 

and  French  travel  and  architecture.    But And  of  course 

Mrs.  Mott  and  Mrs.  Warren  are  very  important  in  the  club, 
as  you  might  expect  of  the  wives  of  the  superintendent  of 
schools  and  the  Congregational  pastor,  and  indeed  they  are 
both  very  cultured,  but No,  you  may  regard  me  as  en 
tirely  unimportant.  I'm  sure  what  I  say  doesn't  matter  a  bit!  " 

"You're  much  too  modest,  and  I'm  going  to  tell  Vida  so, 
and,  uh,  I  wonder  if  you  can  give  me  just  a  teeny  bit  of  your 
time  and  show  me  where  the  magazine  files  are  kept?  " 

She  had  won.  She  was  profusely  escorted  to  a  room  like  a 
grandmother's  attic,  where  she  discovered  periodicals  devoted 
to  house-decoration  and  town-planning,  with  a  six-year  file  of 
the  National  Geographic.  Miss  Villets  blessedly  left  her  alone. 
Humming,  fluttering  pages  with  delighted  fingers,  Carol  sat 
cross-legged  on  the  floor,  the  magazines  in  heaps  about  her. 

She  found  pictures  of  New  England  streets:  the  dignity  of 
Falmouth,  the  charm  of  Concord,  Stockbridge  and  Farmington 
and  Hillhouse  Avenue.  The  fairy-toook  suburb  of  Forest  Hills 
on  Long  Island.  Devonshire  cottages  and  Essex  manors  and 
a  Yorkshire  High  Street  and  Port  Sunlight.  The  Arab  village 


MAIN   STREET  131 

of  Djeddah — an  intricately  chased  jewel-box.  A  town  in  Cali 
fornia  which  had  changed  itself  from  the  barren  brick  fronts 
and  slatternly  frame  sheds  of  a  Main  Street  to  a  way  which 
led  the  eye  down  a  vista  of  arcades  and  gardens. 

Assured  that  she  was  not  quite  mad  in  her  belief  that  a 
small  American  town  might  be  lovely,  as  well  as  useful  in 
buying  wheat  and  selling  plows,  she  sat  brooding,  her  thin 
fingers  playing  a  tattoo  on  her  cheeks.  She  saw  in  Gopher 
Prairie  a  Georgian  city  hall:  warm  brick  walls  with  white 
shutters,  a  fanlight,  a  wide  hall  and  curving  stair.  She  saw  it 
the  common  home  and  inspiration  not  only  of  the  town  but 
of  the  country  about.  It  should  contain  the  court-room  (she 
couldn't  get  herself  to  put  in  a  jail),  public  library,  a  collection 
of  excellent  prints,  rest-room  and  model  kitchen  for  farmwives, 
theater,  lecture  room,  free  community  ballroom,  farm-bureau, 
gymnasium.  Forming  about  it  and  influenced  by  it,  as 
mediaeval  villages  gathered  about  the  castle,  she  saw  a  new 
Georgian  town  as  graceful  and  beloved  as  Annapolis  or  that 
bowery  Alexandria  to  which  Washington  rode. 

All  this  the  Thanatopsis  Club  was  to  accomplish  with  no 
difficulty  whatever,  since  its  several  husbands  were  the  con 
trollers  of  business  and  politics.  She  was  proud  of  herself  for 
this  practical  view. 

She  had  taken  only  half  an  hour  to  change  a  wire-fenced 
potato-plot  into  a  walled  rose-garden.  She  hurried  out  to  ap 
prize  Mrs.  Leonard  Warren,  as  president  of  the  Thanatopsis, 
of  the  miracle  which  had  been  worked. 


m 

At  a  quarter  to  three  Carol  had  left  home;  at  half-past  four 
she  had  created  the  Georgian  town;  at  a  quarter  to  five  she 
was  in  the  dignified  poverty  of  the  Congregational  parsonage, 
her  enthusiasm  pattering  upon  Mrs.  Leonard  Warren  like  sum 
mer  rain  upon  an  old  gray  roof;  at  two  minutes  to  five  a  town 
of  demure  courtyards  and  welcoming  dormer  windows  had 
been  erected;  and  at  two  minutes  past  five  the  entire  town 
was  as  flat  as  Babylon. 

Erect  in  a  black  William  and  Mary  chair  against  gray  and 
speckly-brown  volumes  of  sermons  and  Biblical  commentaries 
and  Palestine  geographies  upon  long  pine  shelves,  her  neat 
black  shoes  firm  on  a  rag-rug,  herself  as  correct  and  low-toned 


132  MAIN   STREET 

as  her  background,  Mrs.  Warren  listened  without  comment  till 
Carol  was  quite  through,  then  answered  delicately: 

"  Yes,  I  think  you  draw  a  very  nice  picture  of  what  might 
easily  come  to  pass — some  day.  I  have  no  doubt  that  such 
villages  will  be  found  on  the  prairie — some  day.  But  if  I  might 
make  just  the  least  little  criticism:  it  seems  to  me  that  you 
are  wrong  in  supposing  either  that  the  city  hall  would  be  the 
proper  start,  or  that  the  Thanatopsis  would  be  the  right  in 
strument.  After  all,  it's  the  churches,  isn't  it,  that  are  the 
real  heart  of  the  community.  As  you  may  possibly  know,  my 
husband  is  prominent  in  Congregational  circles  all  through  the 
state  for  his  advocacy  of  church-union.  He  hopes  to  see  all 
the  evangelical  denominations  joined  in  one  strong  body,  op 
posing  Catholicism  and  Christian  Science,  and  properly  guiding 
all  movements  that  make  for  morality  and  prohibition.  Here, 
the  combined  churches  could  afford  a  splendid  club-house, 
maybe  a  stucco  and  half-timber  building  with  gargoyles  and 
all  sorts  of  pleasing  decorations  on  it,  which,  it  seems  to  me, 
would  be  lots  better  to  impress  the  ordinary  class  of  people 
than  just  a  plain  old-fashioned  colonial  house,  such  as  you 
describe.  And  that  would  be  the  proper  center  for  all  educa 
tional  and  pleasurable  activities,  instead  of  letting  them  fall 
into  the  hands  of  the  politicians." 

"  I  don't  suppose  it  will  take  more  than  thirty  or  forty 
years  for  the  churches  to  get  together?  "  Carol  said  inno 
cently. 

"Hardly  that  long  even;  things  are  moving  so  rapidly.  So 
it  would  be  a  mistake  to  make  any  other  plans." 

Carol  did  not  recover  her  zeal  till  two  days  after,  when  she 
tried  Mrs.  George  Edwin  Mott,  wife  of  the  superintendent  of 
schools. 

Mrs.  Mott  commented,  "  Personally,  I  am  terribly  busy  with 
dressmaking  and  having  the  seamstress  in  the  house  and  all, 
but  it  would  be  splendid  to  have  the  other  members  of  the 
Thanatopsis  take  up  the  question.  Except  for  one  thing:  First 
and  foremost,  we  must  have  a  new  schoolbuilding.  Mr.  Mott 
says  they  are  terribly  cramped." 

Carol  went  to  view  the  old  building.  The  grades  and  the 
high  school  were  combined  in  a  damp  yellow-brick  structure 
with  the  narrow  windows  of  an  antiquated  jail — a  hulk  which 
expressed  hatred  and  compulsory  training.  She  conceded  Mrs. 
Mott's  demand  so  violently  that,  for  two  days  she  dropped  her 


MAIN   STREET  133 

own  campaign.  Then  she  built  the  school  and  city  hall  to 
gether,  as  the  center  of  the  reborn  town. 

She  ventured  to  the  lead-colored  dwelling  of  Mrs.  Dave  Dyer. 
Behind  the  mask  of  winter-stripped  vines  and  a  wide  porch 
only  a  foot  above  the  ground,  the  cottage  was  so  impersonal 
that  Carol  could  never  visualize  it.  Nor  could  she  remember 
anything  that  was  inside  it.  But  Mrs.  Dyer  was  personal 
enough.  With  Carol,  Mrs.  Rowland,  Mrs.  McGanum,  and 
Vida  Sherwin  she  was  a  link  between  the  Jolly  Seventeen  and 
the  serious  Thanatopsis  (in  contrast  to  Juanita  Hay  dock,  who 
unnecessarily  boasted  of  being  a  "  lowbrow "  and  publicly 
stated  that  she  would  "  see  herself  in  jail  before  she'd  write 
any  darned  old  club  papers  ").  Mrs.  Dyer  was  superfeminine 
in  the  kimono  in  which  she  received  Carol.  Her  skin  was  nne, 
pale,  soft,  suggesting  a  weak  voluptuousness.  At  afternoon- 
coffees  she  had  been  rude  but  now  she  addressed  Carol  as 
"  dear,"  and  insisted  on  being  called  Maud.  Carol  did  not 
quite  know  why  she  was  uncomfortable  in  this  talcum-powder 
atmosphere,  but  she  hastened  to  get  into  the  fresh  air  of  her 
plans. 

Maud  Dyer  granted  that  the  city  hall  wasn't  "  so  very  nice," 
yet,  as  Dave  said,  there  was  no  use  doing  anything  about  it 
till  they  received  an  appropriation  from  the  state  and  com 
bined  a  new  city  hall  with  a  national  guard  armory.  Dave 
had  given  verdict,  "  What  these  mouthy  youngsters  that  hang 
around  the  pool-room  need  is  universal  military  training.  Make 
men  of  'em." 

Mrs.  Dyer  removed  the  new  schoolbuilding  from  the  city 
hall: 

"  Oh,  so  Mrs.  Mott  has  got  you  going  on  her  school  craze! 
She's  been  dinging  at  that  till  everybody's  sick  and  tired.  What 
she  really  wants  is  a  big  office  for  her  dear  bald-headed  Gawge 
to  sit  around  and  look  important  in.  Of  course  I  admire 
Mrs.  Mott,  and  I'm  very  fond  of  her,  she's  so  brainy,  even 
if  she  does  try  to  butt  in  and  run  the  Thanatopsis,  but  I  must 
say  we're  sick  of  her  nagging.  The  old  building  was  good 
enough  for  us  when  we  were  kids!  I  hate  these  would-bf 
women  politicians,  don't  you?  " 


134  MAIN   STREET 

IV 

The  first  week  of  March  had  given  promise  of  spring  and 
stirred  Carol  with  a  thousand  desires  for  lakes  and  fields  and 
roads.  The  snow  was  gone  except  for  filthy  woolly  patches 
under  trees;  the  thermometer  leaped  in  a  day  from  wind-bitten 
chill  to  itchy  warmth.  As  soon  as  Carol  was  convinced  that 
even  in  this  imprisoned  North,  spring  could  exist  again,  the 
snow  came  down  as  abruptly  as  a  paper  storm  in  a  theater; 
the  northwest  gale  flung  it  up  in  a  half-blizzard;  and  with 
her  hope  of  a  glorified  town  went  hope  of  summer  meadows. 

But  a  week  later,  though  the  snow  was  everywhere  in  slushy 
heaps,  the  promise  was  unmistakable.  By  the  invisible  hints 
in  air  and  sky  and  earth  which  had  aroused  her  every  year 
through  ten  thousand  generations  she  knew  that  spring  was 
coming.  It  was  not  a  scorching,  hard,  dusty  day  like  the 
treacherous  intruder  of  a  week  before,  but  soaked  with  languor, 
softened  with  a  milky  light.  Rivulets  were  hurrying  in  each 
alley;  a  calling  robin  appeared  by  magic  on  the  crab-apple 
tree  in  the  Rowlands'  yard.  Everybody  chuckled,  "  Looks 
like  winter  is  going,"  and  "  This  '11  bring  the  frost  out  of  the 
roads — have  the  autos  out  pretty  soon  now — wonder  what  kind 
of  bass-fishing  we'll  get  this  summer — ought  to  be  good  crops 
this  year." 

Each  evening  Kennicott  repeated,  "We  better  not  take  off 
our  Heavy  Underwear  or  the  storm  windows  too  soon — might 
be  'nother  spell  of  cold — got  to  be  careful  'bout  catching  cold — 
wonder  if  the  coal  will  last  through?  " 

The  expanding  forces  of  life  within  her  choked  the  desire 
for  reforming.  She  trotted  through  the  house,  planning  the 
spring  cleaning  with  Bea.  When  she  attended  her  second 
meeting  of  the  Thanatopsis  she  said  nothing  about  remaking 
the  town.  She  listened  respectably  to  statistics  on  Dickens, 
Thackeray,  Jane  Austen,  George  Eliot,  Scott,  Hardy,  Lamb, 
De  Quincey,  and  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  who,  it  seemed,  con 
stituted  the  writers  of  English  Fiction  and  Essays. 

Not  till  she  inspected  the  rest-room  did  she  again  become 
a  fanatic.  She  had  often  glanced  at  the  store-building  which 
had  been  turned  into  a  refuge  in  which  farmwives  could  wait 
while  their  husbands  transacted  business.  She  had  heard  Vida 
Sherwin  and  Mrs.  Warren  caress  the  virtue  of  the  Thanatopsis 
in  establishing  the  rest-room  and  in  sharing  with  the  city 


MAIN   STREET  135 

council  the  expense  of  maintaining  it.  But  she  had  never  en 
tered  it  till  this  March  day. 

She  went  in  impulsively;  nodded  at  the  matron,  a  plump 
worthy  widow  named  Nodelquist,  and  at  a  couple  of  farm- 
women  who  were  meekly  rocking.  The  rest-room  resembled 
a  second-hand  store.  It  was  furnished  with  discarded  patent 
rockers,  lopsided  reed  chairs,  a  scratched  pine  .table,  a  gritty 
straw  mat,  old  steel  engravings  of  milkmaids  being  morally 
amorous  under  willow-trees,  faded  chromos  of  roses  and  fish, 
and  a  kerosene  stove  for  warming  lunches.  The  front  window 
was  darkened  by  torn  net  curtains  and  by  a  mound  of  geran 
iums  and  rubber-plants. 

While  she  was  listening  to  Mrs.  Nodelquist's  account  of  how 
many  thousands  of  farmers7  wives  used  the  rest-room  every 
year,  and  how  much  they  "  appreciated  the  kindness  of  the 
ladies  in  providing  them  with  this  lovely  place,  and  all  free," 
she  thought,  "  Kindness  nothing!  The  kind-ladies7  husbands 
get  the  farmers'  trade.  This  is  mere  commercial  accommoda 
tion.  And  it's  horrible.  It  ought  to  be  the  most  charming 
room  in  town,  to  comfort  women  sick  of  prairie  kitchens. 
Certainly  it  ought  to  have  a  clear  window,  so  that  they  can 
see  the  metropolitan  life  go  by.  Some  day  I'm  going  to  make 
a  better  rest-room — a  club-room.  Why!  I've  already  planned 
that  as  part  of  my  Georgian  town  hall!  " 

So  it  chanced  that  she  was  plotting  against  the  peace  of  the 
Thanatopsis  at  her  third  meeting  (which  covered  Scandinavian, 
Russian,  and  Polish  Literature,  with  remarks  by  Mrs.  Leonard 
Warren  on  the  sinful  paganism  of  the  Russian  so-called 
church).  Even  before  the  entrance  of  the  coffee  and  hot  rolls 
Carol  seized  on  Mrs.  Champ  Perry,  the  kind  and  ample- 
bosomed  pioneer  woman  who  gave  historic  dignity  to  the 
modern  matrons  of  the  Thanatopsis.  She  poured  out  her 
plans.  Mrs.  Perry  nodded  and  stroked  Carol's  hand,  but  at 
the  end  she  sighed: 

"  I  wish  I  could  agree  with  you,  dearie.  I'm  sure  you're 
one  of  the  Lord's  anointed  (even  if  we  don't  see  you  at  the 
Baptist  Church  as  often  as  we'd  like  to)!  But  I'm  afraid 
you're  too  tender-hearted.  When  Champ  and  I  came  here 
we  teamed-it  with  an  ox-cart  from  Sauk  Centre  to  Gopher 
Prairie,  and  there  was  nothing  here  then  but  a  stockade  and 
a  few  soldiers  and  some  log  cabins.  When  we  wanted  salt  pork 
and  gunpowder,  we  sent  out  a  man  on  horseback,  and  probably 


136  MAIN   STREET 

he  was  shot  dead  by  the  Injuns  before  he  got  back.  We 
ladies — of  course  we  were  all  farmers  at  first — we  didn't  expect 
any  rest-room  in  those  days.  My,  we'd  have  thought  the  one 
they  have  now  was  simply  elegant!  My  house  was  roofed 
with  hay  and  it  leaked  something  terrible  when  it  rained-^ 
only  dry  place  was  under  a  shelf. 

"And  when  the  town  grew  up  we  thought  the  new  city 
hall  was  real  fine.  And  I  don't  see  any  need  for  dance-halls. 
Dancing  isn't  what  it  was,  anyway.  We  used  to  dance  modest, 
and  we  had  just  as  much  fun  as  all  these  young  folks  do 
now  with  their  terrible  Turkey  Trots  and  hugging  and  all. 
But  if  they  must  neglect  the  Lord's  injunction  that  young  girls 
ought  to  be  modest,  then  I  guess  they  manage  pretty  well  at 
the  K.  P.  Hall  and  the  Oddfellows',  even  if  some  of  the  lodges 
don't  always  welcome  a  lot  of  these  foreigners  and  hired 
help  to  all  their  dances.  And  I  certainly  don't  see  any 
need  of  a  farm-bureau  or  this  domestic  science  demonstration 
you  talk  about.  In  my  day  the  boys  learned  to  farm  by  honest 
sweating,  and  every  gal  could  cook,  or  her  ma  learned  her 
how  across  her  knee!  Besides,  ain't  there  a  county  agent  at 
Wakamin?  He  comes  here  once  a  fortnight,  maybe.  That's 
enough  monkeying  with  this  scientific  farming — Champ  says 
there's  nothing  to  it  anyway. 

"  And  as  for  a  lecture  hall — haven't  we  got  the  churches? 
Good  deal  better  to  listen  to  a  good  old-fashioned  sermon  than 
a  lot  of  geography  and  books  and  things  that  nobody  needs 
to  know — more  'n  enough  heathen  learning  right  here  in  the 
Thanatopsis.  And  as  for  trying  to  make  a  whole  town  in  this 

Colonial  architecture  you  talk  about I  do  love  nice  things ; 

to  this  day  I  run  ribbons  into  my  petticoats,  even  if  Champ 
Perry  does  laugh  at  me,  the  old  villain!  But  just  the  same 
I  don't  believe  any  of  us  old-timers  would  like  to  see  the  town 
that  we  worked  so  hard  to  build  being  tore  down  to  make  a 
place  that  wouldn't  look  like  nothing  but  some  Dutch  story 
book  and  not  a  bit  like  the  place  we  loved.  And  don't  you  think 
it's  sweet  now?  All  the  trees  and  lawns?  And  such  comfy 
houses,  and  hot-water  heat  and  electric  lights  and  telephones 
and  cement  walks  and  everything?  Why,  I  thought  every 
body  from  the  Twin  Cities  always  said  it  was  such  a  beautiful 
town!  " 

Carol  forswore  herself;  declared  that  Gopher  Prairie  had 
the  color  of  Algiers  and  the  gaiety  of  Mardi  Gras. 


MAIN   STREET  137 

Yet  the  next  afternoon  she  was  pouncing  on  Mrs.  Lyman 
Cass,  the  hook-nosed  consort  of  the  owner  of  the  flour-mill. 

Mrs.  Cass's  parlor  belonged  to  the  crammed- Victorian  school, 
as  Mrs.  Luke  Dawson's  belonged  to  the  bare- Victorian.  It  was 
furnished  on  two  principles:  First,  everything  must  resemble 
something  else.  A  rocker  had  a  back  like  a  lyre,  a  near-leather 
seat  imitating  tufted  cloth,  and  arms  like  Scotch  Presbyterian 
lions;  with  knobs,  scrolls,  shields,  and  spear-points  on  un 
expected  portions  of  the  chair.  The  second  principle  of  the 
crammed- Victorian  school  was  that  every  inch  of  the  interior 
must  be  filled  with  useless  objects. 

The  walls  of  Mrs.  Cass's  parlor  were  plastered  with  "  hand- 
painted  "  pictures,  "  buckeye  "  pictures,  of  birch-trees,  news 
boys,  puppies,  and  church-steeples  on  Christmas  Eve;  with  a 
plaque  depicting  the  Exposition  Building  in  Minneapolis,  burnt- 
wood  portraits  of  Indian  chiefs  of  no  tribe  in  particular,  a 
pansy-decked  poetic  motto,  a  Yard  of  Roses,  and  the  banners  of 
the  educational  institutions  attended  by  the  Casses'  two  sons — 
Chicopee  Falls  Business  College  and  McGillicuddy  University. 
One  small  square  table  contained  a  card-receiver  of  painted 
china  with  a  rim  of  wrought  and  gilded  lead,  a  Family  Bible, 
Grant's  Memoirs,  the  latest  novel  by  Mrs.  Gene  Stratton 
Porter,  a  wooden  model  of  a  Swiss  chalet  which  was  also  a  bank 
for  dimes,  a  polished  abalone  shell  holding  one  black-headed 
pin  and  one  empty  spool,  a  velvet  pin-cushion  in  a  gilded 
metal  slipper  with  "  Souvenir  of  Troy,  N.  Y."  stamped  on  the 
toe,  and  an  unexplained  red  glass  dish  which  had  warts. 

Mrs.  Cass's  first  remark  was,  "I  must  show  you  all  my 
pretty  things  and  art  objects." 

She  piped,  after  Carol's  appeal: 

"  I  see.  You  think  the  New  England  villages  and  Colonial 
houses  are  so  much  more  cunning  than  these  Middlewestern 
towns.  I'm  glad  you  feel  that  way.  You'll  be  interested  to 
know  I  was  born  in  Vermont." 

"And  don't  you  think  we  ought  to  try  to  make  Gopher 
Prai " 

"  My  gracious  no!  We  can't  afford  it.  Taxes  are  much  too 
high  as  it  is.  We  ought  to  retrench,  and  not  let  the  city  council 

spend  another  cent.  Uh Don't  you  think  that  was  a  grand 

paper  Mrs.  Westlake  read  about  Tolstoy?  I  was  so  glad 
she  pointed  out  how  all  his  silly  socialistic  ideas  failed." 

What  Mrs.  Cass  said  was  what  Kennicott  said,  that  evening. 


:38  MAIN   STREET 

Not  in  twenty  years  would  the  council  propose  or  Gopher 
Prairie  vote  the  funds  for  a  new  city  hall. 


Carol  had  avoided  exposing  her  plans  to  Vida  Sherwin.  She 
was  shy  of  the  big-sister  manner;  Vida  would  either  laugh 
at  her  or  snatch  the  idea  and  change  it  to  suit  herself.  But 
there  was  no  other  hope.  When  Vida  came  in  to  tea  Carol 
sketched  her  Utopia. 

Vida  was  soothing  but  decisive: 

"  My  dear,  you're  all  off.  I  would  like  to  see  it:  a  real 
gardeny  place  to  shut  out  the  gales.  But  it  can't  be  done. 
What  could  the  clubwomen  accomplish?  " 

"Their  husbands  are  the  most  important  men  in  town. 
They  are  the  town!  " 

"  But  the  town  as  a  separate  unit  is  not  the  husband  of  the 
Thanatopsis.  If  you  knew  the  trouble  we  had  in  getting  the 
city  council  to  spend  the  money  and  cover  the  pumping-station 
with  vines!  Whatever  you  may  think  of  Gopher  Prairie 
women,  they're  twice  as  progressive  as  the  men." 

"  But  can't  the  men  see  the  ugliness?  " 

"  They  don't  think  it's  ugly.  And  how  can  you  prove  it? 
Matter  of  taste.  Why  should  they  like  what  a  Boston  architect 
likes?  " 

"  What  they  like  is  to  sell  prunes!  " 

"  Well,  why  not?  Anyway,  the  point  is  that  you  have  to 
work  from  the  inside,  with  what  we  have,  rather  than  from 
the  outside,  with  foreign  ideas.  The  shell  ought  not  to  be 
forced  on  the  spirit.  It  can't  be!  The  bright  shell  has  to 
grow  out  of  the  spirit,  and  express  it.  That  means  waiting. 
If  we  keep  after  the  city  council  for  another  ten  years  they  may 
vote  the  bonds  for  a  new  school." 

"  I  refuse  to  believe  that  if  they  saw  it  the  big  men  would 
be  too  tight-fisted  to  spend  a  few  dollars  each  for  a  building — 
think! — dancing  and  lectures  and  plays,  all  done  co-opera 
tively!  " 

"  You  mention  the  word  '  co-operative '  to  the  merchants  and 
they'll  lynch  you!  The  one  thing  they  fear  more  than  mail 
order  houses  is  that  farmers'  co-operative  movements  may  get 
started." 

"  Jhe  secret  trails  that  lead  to  scared  pocket-books !    Always 


MAIN   STREET  139 

in  everything!  And  I  don't  have  any  of  the  fine  melodrama 
of  fiction:  the  dictagraphs  and  speeches  by  torchlight.  Fm 
merely  blocked  by  stupidity.  Oh,  I  know  I'm  a  fool.  I  dream 
of  Venice,  and  I  live  in  Archangel  and  scold  because  the 
Northern  seas  aren't  tender-colored.  But  at  least  they  sha'n't 

keep  me  from  loving  Venice,  and  sometime  I'll  run  away 

All  right.     No  more." 
She  flung  out  her  hands  in  a  gesture  of  renunciation. 


VI 

Early  May;  wheat  springing  up  in  blades  like  grass;  corn 
and  potatoes  being  planted ;  the  land  humming.  For  two  days 
there  had  been  steady  rain.  Even  in  town  the  roads  were  a 
furrowed  welter  of  mud,  hideous  to  view  and  difficult  to  cross. 
Main  Street  was  a  black  swamp  from  curb  to  curb ;  on  residence 
streets  the  grass  parking  beside  the  walks  oozed  gray  water. 
It  was  prickly  hot,  yet  the  town  was  barren  under  the  bleak 
sky.  Softened  neither  by  snow  nor  by  waving  boughs  the 
houses  squatted  and  scowled,  revealed  in  their  unkempt  harsh 
ness. 

As  she  dragged  homeward  Carol  looked  with  distaste  at  her 
clay-loaded  rubbers,  the  smeared  hem  of  her  skirt.  She  passed 
Lyman  Cass's  pinnacled,  dark-red,  hulking  house.  She  waded 
a  streaky  yellow  pool.  This  morass  was  not  her  home,  she 
insisted.  Her  home,  and  her  beautiful  town,  existed  in  her 
mind.  They  had  already  been  created.  The  task  was  done. 
What  she  really  had  been  questing  was  some  one  to  share  them 
with  her.  Vida  would  not;  Kennicott  could  not. 

Some  one  to  share  her  refuge. 

Suddenly  she  was  thinking  of  Guy  Pollock. 

She  dismissed  him.  He  was  too  cautious.  She  needed  a 
spirit  as  young  and  unreasonable  as  her  own.  And  she  would 
never  find  it.  Youth  would  never  come  singing.  She  was 
beaten. 

Yet  that  same  evening  she  had  an  idea  which  solved  the 
rebuilding  of  Gopher  Prairie. 

Within  ten  minutes  she  was  jerking  the  old-fashioned  bell- 
pull  of  Luke  Dawson.  Mrs.  Dawson  opened  the  door  and 
peered  doubtfully  about  the  edge  of  it.  Carol  kissed  her 
cheek,  and  frisked  into  the  lugubrious  sitting-room. 

u  Well,  well,  you're  a  sight  for  sore  eyes!  "  chuckled  Mr, 


HO  MAIN   STREET 

Dawson,  dropping  his  newspaper,  pushing  his  spectacles  back 
on  his  forehead. 

"  You  seem  so  excited,"  sighed  Mrs.  Dawson. 

"I  am!     Mr.  Dawson,  aren't  you  a  millionaire?  " 

He  cocked  his  head,  and  purred,  "  Well,  I  guess  if  I  cashed 
in  on  all  my  securities  and  farm-holdings  and  my  interests  in 
iron  on  the  Mesaba  and  in  Northern  timber  and  cut-over  lands, 
I  could  push  two  million  dollars  pretty  close,  and  I've  made 
every  cent  of  it  by  hard  work  and  having  the  sense  to  not  go 
out  and  spend  every " 

"  I  think  I  want  most  of  it  from  you!  " 

The  Dawsons  glanced  at  each  other  in  appreciation  of  the 
jest;  and  he  chirped,  "You're  worse  than  Reverend  Benlick! 
He  don't  hardly  ever  strike  me  for  more  than  ten  dollars — 
at  a  time!  " 

"  I'm  not  joking.  I  mean  it!  Your  children  in  the  Cities  are 
grown-up  and  well-to-do.  You  don't  want  to  die  and  leave 
your  name  unknown.  Why  not  do  a  big,  original  thing?  Why 
not  rebuild  the  whole  town?  Get  a  great  architect,  and  have 
him  plan  a  town  that  would  be  suitable  to  the  prairie.  Perhaps 
he'd  create  some  entirely  new  form  of  architecture.  Then  tear 
down  all  these  shambling  buildings " 

Mr.  Dawson  had  decided  that  she  really  did  mean  it.  He 
wailed,  "  Why,  that  would  cost  at  least  three  or  four  million 
dollars!  " 

"  But  you  alone,  just  one  man,  have  two  of  those  millions!  " 

"  Me?  Spend  all  my  hard-earned  cash  on  building  houses 
for  a  lot  of  shiftless  beggars  that  never  had  the  sense  to  save 
their  money?  Not  that  I've  ever  been  mean.  Mama  could 
always  have  a  hired  girl  to  do  the  work — when  we  could  find 
one.  But  her  and  I  have  worked  our  fingers  to  the  bone  and — 
spend  it  on  a  lot  of  these  rascals ?  " 

"  Please!    Don't  be  angry!    I  just  mean — I  mean Oh, 

not  spend  all  of  it,  of  course,  but  if  you  led  off  the  list,  and 
the  others  came  in,  and  if  they  heard  you  talk  about  a  more 
attractive  town " 

"  Why  now,  child,  youVe  got  a  lot  of  notions.  Besides, 
what's  the  matter  with  the  town?  Looks  good  to  me.  I've 
had  people  that  have  traveled  all  over  the  world  tell  me  time 
and  again  that  Gopher  Prairie  is  the  prettiest  place  in  the 
Middlewest.  Good  enough  for  anybody.  Certainly  good 
enough  for  Mama  and  me.  Besides!  Mama  and  me  are  plan- 


MAIN   STREET  141 

ning  to  go  out  to  Pasadena  and  buy  a  bungalow  and  live 
there." 


VII 

She  had  met  Miles  Bjornstam  on  the  street.  For  the  second 
of  welcome  encounter  this  workman  with  the  bandit  mustache 
and  the  muddy  overalls  seemed  nearer  than  any  one  else  to 
the  credulous  youth  which  she  was  seeking  to  fight  beside  her, 
and  she  told  him,  as  a  cheerful  anecdote,  a  little  of  her  story. 

He  grunted,  "  I  never  thought  I'd  be  agreeing  with  Old  Man 
Dawson,  the  penny-pinching  old  land-thief — and  a  fine  briber 
he  is,  too.  But  you  got  the  wrong  slant.  You  aren't  one  of 
the  people— yet.  You  want  to  do  something  for  the  town.  I 
don't!  I  want  the  town  to  do  something  for  itself.  We  don't 
want  old  Dawson's  money — not  if  it's  a  gift,  with  a  string. 
We'll  take  it  away  from  him,  because  it  belongs  to  us.  You 
got  to  get  more  iron  and  cussedness  into  you.  Come  join  us 
cheerful  bums,  and  some  day — when  we  educate  ourselves  and 
quit  being  bums — we'll  take  things  and  run  'em  straight." 

He  had  changed  from  her  friend  to  a  cynical  man  in  over 
alls.  She  could  not  relish  the  autocracy  of  "  cheerful  bums." 

She  forgot  him  as  she  tramped  the  outskirts  of  town. 

She  had  replaced  the  city  hall  project  by  an  entirely  new 
and  highly  exhilarating  thought  of  how  little  was  done  for 
these  unpicturesque  poor. 


vm 

The  spring  of  the  plains  is  not  a  reluctant  virgin  but  brazen 
and  soon  away.  The  mud  roads  of  a  few  days  ago  are  powdery 
dust  and  the  puddles  beside  them  have  hardened  into  lozenges 
of  black  sleek  earth  like  cracked  patent  leather. 

Carol  was  panting  as  she  crept  to  the  meeting  of  the  Thana- 
topsis  program  committee  which  was  to  decide  the  subject  for 
next  fall  and  winter. 

Madam  Chairman  (Miss  Ella  Stowbody  in  an  oyster- 
colored  blouse)  asked  if  there  was  any  new  business. 

Carol  rose.  She  suggested  that  the  Thanatopsis  ought  to 
help  the  poor  of  the  town.  She  was  ever  so  correct  and  modern. 
She  did  not,  she  said,  want  charity  for  them,  but  a  chance  of 
self-help;  an  employment  bureau,  direction  in  washing  babies 


142  MAIN   STREET 

and  making  pleasing  stews,  possibly  a  municipal  fund  for  home- 
building.  "  What  do  you  think  of  my  plans,  Mrs.  Warren?  " 
she  concluded. 

Speaking  judiciously,  as  one  related  to  the  church  by  mar 
riage,  Mrs.  Warren  gave  verdict: 

"  I'm  sure  we're  all  heartily  in  accord  with  Mrs.  Kennicott 
in  feeling  that  wherever  genuine  poverty  is  encountered,  it  is 
not  only  noblesse  oblige  but  a  joy  to  fulfil  our  duty  to  the  less 
fortunate  ones.  But  I  must  say  it  seems  to  me  we  should 
lose  the  whole  point  of  the  thing  by  not  regarding  it  as  charity. 
Why,  that's  the  chief  adornment  of  the  true  Christian  and  the 
church!  The  Bible  has  laid  it  down  for  our  guidance.  '  Faith, 
Hope,  and  Charity,'  it  says,  and,  '  The  poor  ye  have  with  ye 
always/  which  indicates  that  there  never  can  be  anything  to 
these  so-called  scientific  schemes  for  abolishing  charity,  never! 
And  isn't  it  better  so?  I  should  hate  to  think  of  a  world  in 
which  we  were  deprived  of  all  the  pleasure  of  giving.  Besides, 
if  these  shiftless  folks  realize  they're  getting  charity,  and  not 
something  to  which  they  have  a  right,  they're  so  much  more 
grateful." 

"  Besides,"  snorted  Miss  Ella  Stowbody,  "  they Ve  been  fool 
ing  you,  Mrs.  Kennicott.  There  isn't  any  real  poverty  here. 
Take  that  Mrs.  Steinhof  you  speak  of:  I  send  her  our  washing 
whenever  there's  too  much  for  our  hired  girl — I  must  have 
sent  her  ten  dollars'  worth  the  past  year  alone!  I'm  sure  Papa 
would  never  approve  of  a  city  home-building  fund.  Papa  says 
these  folks  are  fakers.  Especially  all  these  tenant  farmers 
that  pretend  they  have  so  much  trouble  getting  seed  and  ma 
chinery.  Papa  says  they  simply  won't  pay  their  debts.  He 
says  he's  sure  he  hates  to  foreclose  mortgages,  but  it's  the  only 
way  to  make  them  respect  the  law." 

"  And  then  think  of  all  the  clothes  we  give  these  people!  " 
said  Mrs.  Jackson  Elder. 

Carol  intruded  again.  "  Oh  yes.  The  clothes.  I  was  going 
to  speak  of  that.  Don't  you  think  that  when  we  give  clothes 
to  the  poor,  if  we  do  give  them  old  ones,  we  ought  to  mend 
them  first  and  make  them  as  presentable  as  we  can?  Next 
Christmas  when  the  Thanatopsis  makes  its  distribution, 
wouldn't  it  be  jolly  if  we  got  together  and  sewed  on  the  clothes, 
and  trimmed  hats,  and  made  them " 

"Heavens  and  earth,  they  have  more  time  than  we  have  I 
They  ought  to  be  mighty  good  and  grateful  to  get  anything, 


MAIN   STREET  143 

no  matter  what  shape  it's  in.  I  know  I'm  not  going  to  sit 
and  sew  for  that  lazy  Mrs.  Vopni,  with  all  I've  got  to  do!  " 
snapped  Ella  Stowbody. 

They  were  glaring  at  Carol.  She  reflected  that  Mrs.  Vopni, 
whose  husband  had  been  killed  by  a  train,  had  ten  children. 

But  Mrs.  Mary  Ellen  Wilks  was  smiling.  Mrs.  Wilks  was 
the  proprietor  of  Ye  Art  Shoppe  and  Magazine  and  Book  Store, 
and  the  reader  of  the  small  Christian  Science  church.  She 
made  it  all  clear: 

"  If  this  class  of  people  had  an  understanding  of  Science  and 
that  we  are  the  children  of  God  and  nothing  can  harm  us, 
they  wouldn't  be  in  error  and  poverty." 

Mrs.  Jackson  Elder  confirmed,  "  Besides,  it  strikes  me  the 
club  is  already  doing  enough,  with  tree-planting  and  the  anti- 
fly  campaign  and  the  responsibility  for  the  rest-room — to  say 
nothing  of  the  fact  that  we've  talked  of  trying  to  get  the 
railroad  to  put  in  a  park  at  the  station!  " 

"I  think  so  too!  "  said  Madam  Chairman.  She  glanced 
uneasily  at  Miss  Sherwin.  "  But  what  do  you  think,  Vida?  " 

Vida  smiled  tactfully  at  each  of  the  committee,  and  an 
nounced,  "  Well,  I  don't  believe  we'd  better  start  anything 
more  right  now.  But  it's  been  a  privilege  to  hear  Carol's  dear 
generous  ideas,  hasn't  it!  Oh!  There  is  one  thing  we  must 
decide  on  at  once.  We  must  get  together  and  oppose  any  move 
on  the  part  of  the  Minneapolis  clubs  to  elect  another  State 
Federation  president  from  the  Twin  Cities.  And  this  Mrs. 
Edgar  Potbury  they're  putting  forward — I  know  there  are 
people  who  think  she's  a  bright  interesting  speaker,  but  I 
regard  her  as  very  shallow.  What  do  you  say  to  my  writing 
to  the  Lake  Ojibawasha  Club,  telling  them  that  if  their  district 
will  support  Mrs.  Warren  for  second  vice-president,  we'll  sup 
port  their  Mrs.  Hagelton  (and  such  a  dear,  lovely,  cultivated 
woman,  too)  for  president." 

"Yes!  We  ought  to  show  up  those  Minneapolis  folks!  " 
Ella  Stowbody  said  acidly.  "  And  oh,  by  the  way,  we  must 
oppose  this  movement  of  Mrs.  Potbury's  to  have  the  state  clubs 
come  out  definitely  in  favor  of  woman  suffrage.  Women 
haven't  any  place  in  politics.  They  would  lose  all  their  dainti 
ness  and  charm  if  £hey  became  involved  in  these  horried  plots 
and  log-rolling  and  all  this  awful  political  stuff  about  scandal 
and  personalities  and  so  on." 

All — save    one — nodded.      They    interrupted    the    formal 


H4  MAIN   STREET 

business-meeting  to  discuss  Mrs.  Edgar  Potbury's  husband, 
Mrs.  Potbury's  income,  Mrs.  Potbury's  sedan,  Mrs.  Potbury's 
residence,  Mrs.  Potbury's  oratorical  style,  Mrs.  Potbury's  man 
darin  evening  coat,  Mrs.  Potbury's  coiffure,  and  Mrs.  Potbury's 
altogether  reprehensible  influence  on  the  State  Federation  of 
Women's  Clubs. 

Before  the  program  committee  adjourned  they  took  three 
minutes  to  decide  which  of  the  subjects  suggested  by  the 
magazine  Culture  Hints,  Furnishings  and  China,  or  The  Bible 
as  Literature,  would  be  better  for  the  coming  year.  There 
was  one  annoying  incident.  Mrs.  Dr.  Kennicott  interfered 
and  showed  off  again.  She  commented,  "  Don't  you  think 
that  we  already  get  enough  of  the  Bible  in  our  churches  and 
Sunday  Schools?  " 

Mrs.  Leonard  Warren,  somewhat  out  of  order  but  much 
more  out  of  temper,  cried,  "Well  upon  my  word!  I  didn't 
suppose  there  was  any  one  who  felt  that  we  could  get  enough 
of  the  Bible!  I  guess  if  the  Grand  Old  Book  has  withstood 
the  attacks  of  infidels  for  these  two  thousand  years  it  is  worth 
our  slight  consideration!  " 

"  Oh,  I  didn't  mean "  Carol  begged.    Inasmuch  as  she 

did  mean,  it  was  hard  to  be  extremely  lucid.  "  But  I  wish, 
instead  of  limiting  ourselves  either  to  the  Bible,  or  to  anecdotes 
about  the  Brothers  Adam's  wigs,  which  Culture  Hints  seems 
to  regard  as  the  significant  point  about  furniture,  we  could 
study  some  of  the  really  stirring  ideas  that  are  springing  up 
today — whether  it's  chemistry  or  anthropology  or  labor  prob 
lems — the  things  that  are  going  to  mean  so  terribly  much." 

Everybody  cleared  her  polite  throat. 

Madam  Chairman  inquired,  "  Is  there  any  other  discussion? 
Will  some  one  make  a  motion  to  adopt  the  suggestion  of  Vida 
Sherwin — to  take  up  Furnishings  and  China?  " 

It  was  adopted,  unanimously. 

"  Checkmate!  "  murmured  Carol,  as  she  held  up  her  hand. 

Had  she  actually  believed  that  she  could  plant  a  seed  of 
liberalism  in  the  blank  wall  of  mediocrity?  How  had  she 
fallen  into  the  folly  of  trying  to  plant  anything  whatever  in  a 
wall  so  smooth  and  sun-glazed,  and  so  satisfying  to  the  happy 
sleepers  within? 


CHAPTER  XII 


ONE  week  of  authentic  spring,  one  rare  sweet  week  of  May, 
one  tranquil  moment  between  the  blast  of  winter  and  the  charge 
of  summer.  Daily  Carol  walked  from  town  into  flashing 
country  hysteric  with  new  life. 

One  enchanted  hour  when  she  returned  to  youth  and  'a 
belief  in  the  possibility  of  beauty. 

She  had  walked  northward  toward  the  upper  shore  of  Plover 
Lake,  taking  to  the  railroad  track,  whose  directness  and  dry- 
ness  make  it  the  natural  highway  for  pedestrians  on  the 
plains.  She  stepped  from  tie  to  tie,  in  long  strides.  At  eacfc 
road-crossing  she  had  to  crawl  over  a  cattle-guard  of  sharpened 
timbers.  She  walked  the  rails,  balancing  with  arms  extended, 
cautious  heel  before  toe.  As  she  lost  balance  her  body  bent 
over,  her  arms  revolved  wildly,  and  when  she  toppled  she 
laughed  aloud. 

The  thick  grass  beside  the  track,  coarse  and  prickly  with 
many  burnings,  hid  canary-yellow  buttercups  and  the  mauve 
petals  and  woolly  sage-green  coats  of  the  pasque  flowers.  The 
branches  of  the  kinnikinic  brush  were  red  and  smooth  as 
lacquer  on  a  saki  bowl. 

She  ran  down  the  gravelly  embankment,  smiled  at  children 
gathering  flowers  in  a  little  basket,  thrust  a  handful  of  the 
soft  pasque  flowers  into  the  bosom  of  her  white  blouse.  Fields 
of  springing  wheat  drew  her  from  the  straight  propriety  of  the 
railroad  and  she  crawled  through  the  rusty  barbed-wire  fence. 
She  followed  a  furrow  between  low  wheat  blades  and  a  field  of 
rye  which  showed  silver  lights  as  it  flowed  before  the  wind. 
She  found  a  pasture  by  the  lake.  So  sprinkled  was  the  pasture 
with  rag-baby  blossoms  and  the  cottony  herb  of  Indian  tobacco 
that  it  spread  out  like  a  rare  old  Persian  carpet  of  cream 
and  rose  and  delicate  green.  Under  her  feet  the  rough  grass 
made  a  pleasant  crunching.  Sweet  winds  blew  from  the  sunny 
lake  beside  her,  and  small  waves  sputtered  on  the  meadowy 
shore.  She  leaped  a  tiny  creek  bowered  in  pussy-willow  buds* 

US 


146  MAIN   STREET 

She  was  nearing  a  frivolous  grove  of  birch  and  poplar  and 
wild  plum  trees. 

The  poplar  foliage  had  the  downiness  of  a  Corot  arbor; 
the  green  and  silver  trunks  were  as  candid  as  the  birches,  as 
slender  and  lustrous  as  the  limbs  of  a  Pierrot.  The  cloudy 
white  blossoms  of  the  plum  trees  filled  the  grove  with  a 
springtime  mistiness  which  gave  an  illusion  of  distance. 

She  ran  into  the  wood,  crying  out  for  joy  of  freedom  regained 
after  winter.  Choke-cherry  blossoms  lured  her  from  the  outer 
sun- warmed  spaces  to  depths  of  green  stillness,  where  a  sub 
marine  light  came  through  the  young  leaves.  She  walked 
pensively  along  an  abandoned  road.  She  found  a  moccasin- 
flower  beside  a  lichen-covered  log.  At  the  end  of  the  road 
she  saw  the  open  acres — dipping  rolling  fields  bright  with 
wheat. 

"  I  believe!  The  woodland  gods  still  live!  And  out  there, 
the  great  land.  It's  beautiful  as  the  mountains.  What  do 
I  care  for  Thanatopsises?  " 

She  came  out  on  the  prairie,  spacious  under  an  arch  of  boldly 
cut  clouds.  Small  pools  glittered.  Above  a  marsh  red- winged 
blackbirds  chased  a  crow  in  a  swift  melodrama  of  the  air. 
On  a  hill  was  silhouetted  a  man  following  a  drag.  His  horse 
bent  its  neck  and  plodded,  content. 

A  path  took  her  to  the  Corinth  road,  leading  back  to  town. 
Dandelions  glowed  in  patches  amidst  the  wild  grass  by  the 
way.  A  stream  golloped  through  a  concrete  culvert  beneath 
the  road.  She  trudged  in  healthy  weariness. 

A  man  in  a  bumping  Ford  rattled  up  beside  her,  hailed, 
"  Give  you  a  lift,  Mrs.  Kennicott?  " 

"  Thank  you.  It's  awfully  good  of  you,  but  I'm  enjoying  the 
walk." 

"  Great  day,  by  golly.  I  seen  some  wheat  that  must  of 
been  five  inches  high.  Well,  so  long." 

She  hadn't  the  dimmest  notion  who  he  was,  but  his  greeting 
warmed  her.  This  countryman  gave  her  a  companionship 
which  she  had  never  (whether  by  her  fault  or  theirs  or  neither) 
been  able  to  find  in  the  matrons  and  commercial  lords  of  the 
town. 

Half  a  mile  from  town,  in  a  hollow  between  hazelnut  bushes 
and  a  brook,  she  discovered  a  gipsy  encampment:  a  covered 
wagon,  a  tent,  a  bunch  of  pegged-out  horses.  A  broad- 
shouldered  man  was  squatted  on  his  heels,  holding  a  frying- 


MAIN   STREET  147 

pan  over  a  can  p-fire.    He  looked  toward  her.    He  was  Miles 
Bjornstam. 

"  Well,  well,  what  you  doing  out  here?  "  he  roared.  "  Come 
have  a  hunk  o'  bacon.  Pete!  Hey,  Petel  " 

A  tousled  person  came  from  behind  the  covered  wagon. 

"  Pete,  here's  the  one  honest-to-God  lady  in  my  bum  towa 
Come  on,  crawl  in  and  set  a  couple  minutes,  Mrs.  Kennicott. 
I'm  hiking  off  for  all  summer." 

The  Red  Swede  staggered  up,  rubbed  his  cramped  knees, 
lumbered  to  the  wire  fence,  held  the  strands  apart  for  her. 
She  unconsciously  smiled  at  him  as  she  went  through.  Her 
skirt  caught  on  a  barb;  he  carefully  freed  it. 

Beside  this  man  in  blue  flannel  shirt,  baggy  khaki  trousers, 
uneven  suspenders,  and  vile  felt  hat,  she  was  small  and 
exquisite. 

The  surly  Pete  set  out  an  upturned  bucket  for  her.  She 
lounged  on  it,  her  elbows  on  her  knees.  "Where  are  you 
going?  "  she  asked. 

"  Just  starting  off  for  the  summer,  horse- trading."  Bjorn 
stam  chuckled.  His  red  mustache  caught  the  sun.  "  Regular 
hoboes  and  public  benefactors  we  are.  Take  a  hike  like  this 
every  once  in  a  while.  Sharks  on  horses.  Buy  'em  from 
farmers  and  sell  'em  to  others.  We're  honest — frequently. 
Great  time.  Camp  along  the  road.  I  was  wishing  I  had  a 

chance  to  say  good-by  to  you  before  I  ducked  out  but 

Say,  you  better  come  along  with  us." 

"I'd  like  to." 

"  While  you're  playing  mumblety-peg  with  Mrs.  Lym  Cass, 
Pete  and  me  will  be  rambling  across  Dakota,  through  the 
Bad  Lands,  into  the  butte  country,  and  when  fall  comes, 
we'll  be  crossing  over  a  pass  of  the  Big  Horn  Mountains, 
maybe,  and  camp  in  a  snow-storm,  quarter  of  a  mile  right 
straight  up  above  a  lake.  Then  in  the  morning  we'll  lie  snug 
in  our  blankets  and  look  up  through  the  pines  at  an  eagle. 
How'd  it  strike  you?  Heh?  Eagle  soaring  and  soaring  all 
day — big  wide  sky " 

"  Don't!  Or  I  will  go  with  you,  and  I'm  afraid  there  might 
be  some  slight  scandal.  Perhaps  some  day  I'll  do  it.  Good-by." 

Her  hand  disappeared  in  his  blackened  leather  glove.  From 
the  turn  in  the  road  she  waved  at  him.  She  walked  on  more 
soberly  now,  and  she  was  lonely. 

But  the  wheat  and  grass  were  sleek  velvet  under  the  sun- 


I48  MAIN    STREET 

set;  the  prairie  clouds  were  tawny  gold;  and  she  swung  happily 
into  Main  Street. 


Through  the  first  days  of  June  she  drove  with  Kennicott  on 
his  calls.  She  identified  him  with  the  virile  land;  she  admired 
him  as  she  saw  with  what  respect  the  farmers  obeyed  him. 
She  was  out  in  the  early  chill,  after  a  hasty  cup  of  coffee, 
reaching  open  country  as  the  fresh  sun  came  up  in  that 
unspoiled  world.  Meadow  larks  called  from  the  tops  of  thin 
split  fence-posts.  The  wild  roses  smelled  clean. 

As  they  returned  in  late  afternoon  the  low  sun  was  a 
solemnity  of  radial  bands,  like  a  heavenly  fan  of  beaten  gold; 
the  limitless  circle  of  the  grain  was  a  green  sea  rimmed  with 
fog,  and  the  willow  wind-breaks  were  palmy  isles. 

Before  July  the  close  heat  blanketed  them.  The  tortured 
earth  cracked.  Farmers  panted  through  corn-fields  behind 
cultivators  and  the  sweating  flanks  of  horses.  While  she  waited 
for  Kennicott  in  the  car,  before  a  farmhouse,  the  seat  burned 
her  fingers  and  her  head  ached  with  the  glare  on  fenders  and 
hood. 

A  black  thunder-shower  was  followed  by  a  dust  storm  which 
turned  the  sky  yellow  with  the  hint  of  a  coming  tornado. 
Impalpable  black  dust  far-borne  from  Dakota  covered  the 
inner  sills  of  the  closed  windows. 

The  July  heat  was  ever  more  stifling.  They  crawled  along 
Main  Street  by  day;  they  found  it  hard  to  sleep  at  night.  They 
brought  mattresses  down  to  the  living-room,  and  thrashed  and 
turned  by  the  open  window.  Ten  times  a  night  they  talked  of 
going  out  to  soak  themselves  with  the  hose  and  wade  through 
the  dew,  but  they  were  too  listless  to  take  the  trouble.  On 
cool  evenings,  when  they  tried  to  go  walking,  the  gnats  ap 
peared  in  swarms  which  peppered  their  faces  and  caught  in 
their  throats. 

She  wanted  the  Northern  pines,  the  Eastern  sea,  but  Kenni 
cott  declared  that  it  would  be  "  kind  of  hard  to  get  away,  just 
now"  The  Health  and  Improvement  Committee  of  the 
Thanatopsis  asked  her  to  take  part  in  the  anti-fly  campaign, 
and  she  toiled  about  town  persuading  householders  to  use  the 
fly-traps  furnished  by  the  club,  or  giving  out  money  prizes  to 
fly-swatting  children.  She  was  loyal  enough  but  not  ardent, 


MAIN   STREET 

and  without  ever  quite  intending  to,  she  began  to  neglect  the 
task  as  heat  sucked  at  her  strength. 

Kennicott  and  she  motored  North  and  spent  a  week  with 
his  mother — that  is,  Carol  spent  it  with  his  mother,  while  he 
fished  for  bass. 

The  great  event  was  their  purchase  of  a  summer  cottage, 
down  on  Lake  Minniemashie. 

Perhaps  the  most  amiable  feature  of  life  in  Gopher  Prairie 
was  the  summer  cottages.  They  were  merely  two-room 
shanties,  with  a  seepage  of  broken-down  chairs,  peeling  veneered 
tables,  chromes  pasted  on  wooden  walls,  and  inefficient  kerosene 
stoves.  They  were  so  thin-walled  and  so  close  together  that 
you  could — and  did — hear  a  baby  being  spanked  in  the  fifth 
cottage  off.  But  they  were  set  among  elms  and  lindens  on  a 
bluff  which  looked  across  the  lake  to  fields  of  ripened  wheat 
sloping  up  to  green  woods. 

Here  the  matrons  forgot  social  jealousies,  and  sat  gossiping 
in  gingham;  or,  in  old  bathing-suits,  surrounded  by  hysterical 
children,  they  paddled  for  hours.  Carol_  joined  them;  she 
ducked  shrieking  small  boys,  and  helped  babies  construct  sand- 
basins  for  unfortunate  minnows.  She  liked  Juanita  Haydock 
and  Maud  Dyer  when  she  helped  them  make  picnic-supper 
for  the  men,  who  came  motoring  out  from  town  each  evening. 
She  was  easier  and  more  natural  with  them.  In  the  debate 
as  to  whether  there  should  be  veal  loaf  or  poached  egg  on  hash, 
she  had  no  chance  to  be  heretical  and  oversensitive. 

They  danced  sometimes,  in  the  evening;  they  had  a  minstrel 
show,  with  Kennicott  surprisingly  good  as  end-man;  always 
they  were  encircled  by  children  wise  in  the  lore  of  woodchucks 
and  gophers  and  rafts  and  willow  whistles. 

If  they  could  have  continued  this  normal  barbaric  life  Carol 
would  have  been  the  most  enthusiastic  citizen  of  Gopher 
Prairie.  She  was  relieved  to  be  assured  that  she  did  not  want 
bookish  conversation  alone;  that  she  did  not  expect  the  town 
to  become  a  Bohemia.  She  was  content  now.  She  did  not 
criticize. 

But  in  September,  when  the  year  was  at  its  richest,  custom 
dictated  that  it  was  time  to  return  to  town;  to  remove  the 
children  from  the  waste  occupation  of  learning  the  earth,  and 
send  them  back  to  lessons  about  the  number  of  potatoes  which 
(in  a  delightful  world  untroubled  by  commission-houses  or 
shortages  in  freight-cars)  William  sold  to  John.  The  women 


150  MAIN   STREET 

who  had  cheerfully  gone  bathing  all  summer  looked  doubtful 
when  Carol  begged,  "  Let's  keep  up  an  outdoor  life  this  winter, 
let's  slide  and  skate."  Their  hearts  shut  again  till  spring,  and 
the  nine  months  of  cliques  and  radiators  and  dainty  refresh 
ments  began  all  over. 


in 

Carol  had  started  a  salon. 

Since  Kennicott,  Vida  Sherwin,  and  Guy  Pollock  were  her 
only  lions,  and  since  Kennicott  would  have  preferred  Sam 
Clark  to  all  the  poets  and  radicals  in  the  entire  world,  her 
private  and  self-defensive  clique  did  not  get  beyond  one 
evening  dinner  for  Vida  and  Guy,  on  her  first  wedding  an 
niversary;  and  that  dinner  did  not  get  beyond  a  controversy 
regarding  Raymie  Wutherspoon's  yearnings. 

Guy  Pollock  was  the  gentlest  person  she  had  found  here. 
He  spoke  of  her  new  jade  and  cream  frock  naturally,  not 
jocosely;  he  held  her  chair  for  her  as  they  sat  down  to  dinner; 
and  he  did  not,  like  Kennicott,  interrupt  her  to  shout,  "  Oh 
say,  speaking  of  that,  I  heard  a  good  story  today."  But  Guy 
was  incurably  hermit.  He  sat  late  and  talked  hard,  and  did 
not  come  again. 

Then  she  met  Champ  Perry  in  the  post-office — and  decided 
that  in  the  history  of  the  pioneers  was  the  panacea  for  Gopher 
Prairie,  for  all  of  America.  We  have  lost  their  sturdiness,  she 
told  herself.  We  must  restore  the  last  of  the  veterans  to  power 
and  follow  them  on  the  backward  path  to  the  integrity  of 
Lincoln,  to  the  gaiety  of  settlers  dancing  in  a  saw-mill. 

She  read  in  the  records  of  the  Minnesota  Territorial  Pio 
neers  that  only  sixty  years  ago,  not  so  far  back  as  the  birth 
of  her  own  father,  four  cabins  had  composed  Gopher  Prairie. 
The  log  stockade  which  Mrs.  Champ  Perry  was  to  find  when 
she  trekked  in  was  built  afterward  by  the  soldiers  as  a  defense 
against  the  Sioux.  The  four  cabins  were  inhabited  by  Maine 
Yankees  who  had  come  up  the  Mississippi  to  St.  Paul  and 
driven  north  over  virgin  prairie  into  virgin  woods.  They 
ground  their  own  corn;  the  men- folks  shot  ducks  and  pigeons 
and  prairie  chickens;  the  new  breakings  yielded  the  turnip- 
like  rutabagas,  which  they  ate  raw  and  boiled  and  baked  and 
raw  again.  For  treat  they  had  wild  plums  and  crab-apples  and 
tiny  wild  strawberries. 


MAIN    STREET  151 

Grasshoppers  came  darkening  the  sky,  and  in  an  hour  ate 
the  farmwife's  garden  and  the  farmer's  coat.  Precious  horses, 
painfully  brought  from  Illinois,  were  drowned  in  bogs  or 
stampeded  by  the  fear  of  blizzards.  Snow  blew  through  the 
chinks  of  new-made  cabins,  and  Eastern  children,  with  flowery 
muslin  dresses,  shivered  all  winter  and  in  summer  were  red 
and  black  with  mosquito  bites.  Indians  were  everywhere;  they 
camped  in  dooryards,  stalked  into  kitchens  to  demand  dough 
nuts,  came  with  rifles  across  their  backs  into  schoolhouses  and 
begged  to  see  the  pictures  in  the  geographies.  Packs  of  timber- 
wolves  treed  the  children ;  and  the  settlers  found  dens  of  rattle 
snakes,  killed  fifty,  a  hundred,  in  a  day. 

Yet  it  was  a  buoyant  life.  "  Carol  read  enviously  in  the 
admirable  Minnesota  chronicles  called  "  Old  Rail  Fence  Cor 
ners  "  the  reminiscence  of  Mrs.  Mahlon  Black,  who  settled  in 
Stillwiter  in  1848: 

"  There  was  nothing  to  parade  over  in  those  days.  We  took 
it  as  it  came  ^nd  had  happy  lives.  .  .  .  We  would  all 
gather  together  and  in  about  two  minutes  would  be  having 
a  good  time — playing  cards  or  dancing.  .  .  .  We  used  to 
waltz  and  dance  contra  dances.  None  of  these  new  jigs  and 
not  wear  any  clothes  to  speak  of.  We  covered  our  hides  in 
those  days ;  no  tight  skirts  like  now.  You  could  take  three  or 
four  steps  inside  our  skirts  and  then  not  reach  the  edge.  One 
of  the  boys  would  fiddle  a  while  and  then  some  one  would 
spell  him  and  he  could  get  a  dance.  Sometimes  they  would 
dance  and  fiddle  too." 

She  reflected  that  if  she  could  not  have  ballrooms  of  gray 
and  rose  and  crystal,  she  wanted  to  be  swinging  across  a 
puncheon-floor  with  a  dancing  fiddler.  This  smug  in-between 
town,  which  had  exchanged  "  Money  Musk  "  for  phonographs 
grinding  out  ragtime,  it  was  neither  the  heroic  old  nor  the 
sophisticated  new.  Couldn't  she  somehow,  some  yet  un- 
imagined  how,  turn  it  back  \  >  simplicity? 

She  herself  knew  two  of  the  pioneers:  the  Perrys.  Champ 
Perry  was  the  buyer  at,  the  grain-elevator.  He  weighed  wagons 
of  wheat  on  av  rough  platform-scale,  in  the  cracks  of  which  the 
kernels  sprouted  every  spring.  Between  times  he  napped  in 
the  dusty  peace  of  his  office. 

She  called  on  the  Perrys  at  their  rooms  above  Rowland  & 
Gould's  grocery. 

When  they  were  already  old  they  had  lost  the  money, 


152  MAIN   STREET 

which  they  had  invested  in  an  elevator.  They  had  given  up 
their  beloved  yellow  brick  house  and  moved  into  these  rooms 
over  a  store,  which  were  the  Gopher  Prairie  equivalent  of  a 
flat.  A  broad  stairway  led  from  the  street  to  the  upper  hall, 
along  which  were  the  doors  of  a  lawyer's  office,  a  dentist's, 
a  photographer's  "  studio,"  the  lodge-rooms  of  the  Affiliated 
Order  of  Spartans  and,  at  the  back,  the  Perrys'  apartment. 

They  received  her  (their  first  caller  in  a  month)  with  aged 
fluttering  tenderness.  Mrs.  Perry  confided,  "  My,  it's  a  shame 
we  got  to  entertain  you  in  such  a  cramped  place.  And  there 
ain't  any  water  except  that  ole  iron  sink  outside  in  the  hall, 
but  still,  as  I  say  to  Champ,  beggars  can't  be  choosers.  'Sides, 
the  brick  house  was  too  big  for  me  to  sweep,  and  it  was  way 
out,  and  it's  nice  to  be  living  down  here  among  folks.  Yes, 

we're  glad  to  be  here.  But Some  day,  maybe  we  can 

have  a  house  of  our  own  again.  We're  saving  up Oh, 

dear,  if  we  could  have  our  own  home!  But  these  rooms  are 
real  nice,  ain't  they!  " 

As  old  people  will,  the  world  over,  they  had  moved  as  much 
as  possible  of  their  familiar  furniture  into  this  small  space. 
Carol  had  none  of  the  superiority  she  felt  toward  Mrs.  Lyman 
Cass's  plutocratic  parlor.  She  was  at  home  here.  She  noted 
with  tenderness  all  the  makeshifts:  the  darned  chair-arms,  the 
patent  rocker  covered  with  sleazy  cretonne,  the  pasted  strips 
of  paper  mending  the  birch-bark  napkin-rings  labeled  "  Papa  " 
and  "  Mama." 

She  hinted  of  her  new  enthusiasm.  To  find  one  of  the 
"  young  folks  "  who  took  them  seriously,  heartened  the  Perrys, 
and  she  easily  drew  from  them  the  principles  by  which  Gopher 
Prairie  should  be  born  again — should  again  become  amusing 
to  live  in. 

This  was  their  philosophy  complete  ...  in  the  era  of 
aeroplanes  and  syndicalism: 

The  Baptist  Church  (and,  somewhat  less,  the  Methodist, 
Congregational,  and  Presbyterian  Churches)  is  the  perfect,  the 
divinely  ordained  standard  in  music,  oratory,  philanthropy,  and 
ethics.  "  We  don't  need  all  this  new-fangled  science,  or  this 
terrible  Higher  Criticism  that's  ruining  our  young  men  in 
colleges.  What  we  need  is  to  get  back  to  the  true  Word  of 
God,  and  a  good  sound  belief  in  hell,  like  we  used  to  have 
it  preached  to  us." 

The  Republican  Party,  the  Grand  Old  Party  of  Elaine  and 


MAIN   STREET  153 

McKinley,  is  the  agent  of  the  Lord  and  of  the  Baptist  Church 
in  temporal  affairs. 

All  socialists  ought  to  be  hanged. 

"  Harold  Bell  Wright  is  a  lovely  writer,  and  he  teaches  such 
good  morals  in  his  novels,  and  folks  say  he's  made  prett'  near 
a  million  dollars  out  of  'em." 

People  who  make  more  than  ten  thousand  a  year  or  less 
than  eight  hundred  are  wicked. 

Europeans  are  still  wickeder. 

It  doesn't  hurt  any  to  drink  a  glass  of  beer  on  a  warm  day, 
but  anybody  who  touches  wine  is  headed  straight  for  hell. 

Virgins  are  not  so  virginal  as  they  used  to  be. 

Nobody  needs  drug-store  ice  cream;  pie  is  good  enough  for 
anybody. 

The  farmers  want  too  much  for  their  wheat. 

The  owners  of  the  elevator-company  expect  too  much  for  the 
salaries  they  pay. 

There  would  be  no  more  trouble  or  discontent  in  the  world 
if  everybody  worked  as  hard  as  Pa  did  when  he  cleared  our 
first  farm. 


IV 

Carol's  hero-worship  dwindled  to  polite  nodding,  and  the 
nodding  dwindled  to  a  desire  to  escape,  and  she  went  home 
with  a  headache. 

Next  day  she  saw  Miles  Bjornstam  on  the  street. 

"  Just  back  from  Montana.  Great  summer.  Pumped  my 
4ungs  chuck-full  of  Rocky  Mountain  air.  Now  for  another 
whirl  at  sassing  the  bosses  of  Gopher  Prairie."  She  smiled  at 
him,  and  the  Perrys  faded,  the  pioneers  faded,  till  they  were 
but  daguerreotypes  in  a  black  walnut  cupboard. 


CHAPTER 

SHE  tried,  more  from  loyalty  than  from  desire,  to  call  upon 
the  Perrys  on  a  November  evening  when  Kennicott  was  away. 
They  were  not  at  home. 

Like  a  child  who  has  no  one  to  play  with  she  loitered  through 
the  dark  hall.  She  saw  a  light  under  an  office  door.  She 
knocked.  To  the  person  who  opened  she  murmured,  "  Do  you 
happen  to  know  where  the  Perrys  are?  "  She  realized  that 
it  was  Guy  Pollock. 

"  I'm  awfully  sorry,  Mrs.  Kennicott,  but  I  don't  know. 
Won't  you  come  in  and  wait  for  them?  " 

"  W-why "  she  observed,  as  she  reflected  that  in  Gopher 

Prairie  it  is  not  decent  to  call  on  a  man;  as  she  decided  that 
no,  really,  she  wouldn't  go  in;  and  as  she  went  in. 

"  I  didn't  know  your  office  was  up  here." 

"  Yes,  office,  town-house,  and  chateau  in  Picardy.  But  you 
can't  see  the  chateau  and  town-house  (next  to  the  Duke  of 
Sutherland's).  They're  beyond  that  inner  door.  They  are  a 
cot  and  a  wash-stand  and  my  other  suit  and  the  blue  crepe  tie 
you  said  you  liked." 

"  You  remember  my  saying  that?  " 

"  Of  course.    I  always  shall.    Please  try  this  chair." 

She  glanced  about  the  rusty  office — gaunt  stove,  shelves 
of  tan  law-books,  desk-chair  filled  with  newspapers  so  long 
sat  upon  that  they  were  in  holes  and  smudged  to  grayness. 
There  were  only  two  things  which  suggested  Guy  Pollock.  On 
the  green  felt  of  the  table-desk,  between  legal  blanks  and  a 
clotted  inkwell,  was  a  cloissone  vase.  On  a  swing  shelf  was  a 
row  of  books  unfamiliar  to  Gopher  Prairie:  Mosher  editions 
of  the  poets,  black  and  red  German  novels,  a  Charles  Lamb  in 
crushed  levant. 

Guy  did  not  sit  down.  He  quartered  the  office,  a  grayhound 
on  the  scent;  a  grayhound  with  glasses  tilted  forward  on  his 
thin  nose,  and  a  silky  indecisive  brown  mustache.  He  had  a 
golf  jacket  of  jersey,  worn  through  at  the  creases  in  the  sleeves. 
She  noted  that  he  did  not  apologize  for  it,  as  Kennicott  would 
have  done.  < 

154 


MAIN   STREET  155 

He  made  conversation:  "  I  didn't  know  you  were  a  bosom 
friend  of  the  Perrys.  Champ  is  the  salt  of  the  earth  but  some 
how  I  can't  imagine  him  joining  you  in  symbolic  dancing,  or 
making  improvements  on  the  Diesel  engine." 

"No.  He's  a  dear  soul,  bless  him,  but  he  belongs  in  the 
National  Museum,  along  with  General  Grant's  sword,  and 

I'm Oh,  I  suppose  I'm  sr^king  for  a  gospel  that  will 

evangelize  Gopher  Prairie." 

"Really?    Evangelize c  to  what?  *"". 

"  To  anything  that's  definke/  Seriousness  or  frivolousness  or 
both.  I  wouldn't  care  whether  it  was  a  laboratory  or  a  carni 
val.  But  it's  merely  safe.  Tell  me,  Mr.  Pollock,  what  is  the 
matter  with  Gopher  Prairie?  " 

"  Is  anything  the  matter  with  it?  Isn't  there  perhaps  some 
thing  the  matter  with  you  and  me?  (May  I  join  you  in  the 
honor  of  having  something  the  matter?)  " 

"  (Yes,  thanks.)     No,  I  think  it's  the  town." 

"  Because  they  enjoy  skating  more  than  biology?  " 

"  But  I'm  not  only  more  interested  in  biology  than  the  Jolly 
Seventeen,  but  also  in  skating!  I'll  skate  with  them,  or 
slide,  or  throw  snowballs,  just  as  gladly  as  talk  with  you." 

("Oh  no!") 

("  Yes! )    But  they  want  to  stay  home  and  embroider." 

"  Perhaps.  I'm  not  defending  the  town.  It's  merely 

I'm  a  confirmed  doubter  of  myself.  (Probably  I'm  conceited 
about  my  lack  of  conceit!)  Anyway,  Gopher  Prairie  isn't 
particularly  bad.  It's  like  all  villages  in  all  countries.  Most 
places  that  have  lost  the  smell  of  earth  but  not  yet  acquired 
the  smell  of  patchouli — or  of  factory-smoke — are  just  as  sus 
picious  and  righteous.  I  wonder  if  the  small  town  isn't,  with 
some  lovely  exceptions,  a  social  appendix?  Some  day  these 
dull  market- towns  may  be  as  obsolete  as  monasteries.  I  can 
imagine  the  farmer  and  his  local  store-manager  going  by 
monorail,  at  the  end  of  the  day,  into  a  city  more  charming 
than  any  William  Morris  Utopia — music,  a  university,  clubs 
for  loafers  like  me.  (Lord,  how  I'd  like  to  have  a  real  club! )  " 

She  asked  impulsively,  "  You,  why  do  you  stay  here?  " 

"  I  have  the  Village  Virus." 

"  It  sounds  dangerous." 

"  It  is.  More  dangerous  than  the  cancer  that  will  certainly 
get  me  at  fifty  unless  I  stop  this  smoking.  The  Village  Virus 
is  the  germ  which — it's  extraordinarily  like  the  hook-worm — it 


156  MA iN   STREET 

infects  ambitious  people  who  stay  too  long  in  the  provinces. 
You'll  find  it  epidemic  among  lawyers  and  doctors  and  ministers 
and  college-bred  merchants — all  these  people  who  have  had  a 
gL'mpse  of  the  world  that  thinks  and  laughs,  but  have  returned 
to  their  swamp.  I'm  a  perfect  example.  But  I  sha'n't  pester 
yoi*  with  my  dolors." 

"  You  won't.    And  do  sit-down,  so  I  can  see  you." 

He  dropped  into  the  shrieking  desk-chair.  He  looked 
squarel/.atiiervsks  w?,->  jonscious  of  the  pupils  of  his  eyes;  of 
the  fact  tnt  ^e  ,/as  a  'man,  and  A)f^Iy.  They  were  embarrassed. 
They  elaborately  glanced  away,  and  were  relieved  as  he  went 
on: 

"The  diagnosis  of  my  Village  Virus  is  simple  enough.  I 
was  born  in  an  Ohio  town  about  the  same  size  as  Gopher 
Prairie,  and  much  less  friendly.  It'd  had  more  generations  in 
which  to  form  an  oligarchy  of  respectability.  Here,  a  stranger 
is  taken  in  if  he  is  correct,  if  he  likes  hunting  and  motoring  and 
God  and  our  Senator.  There,  we  didn't  take  in  even  our  own 
till  we  had  contemptuously  got  used  to  them.  It  was  a  red 
brick  Ohio  town,  and  the  trees  made  it  damp,  and  it  smelled  of 
rotten  apples.  The  country  wasn't  like  our  lakes  and  prairie. 
There  were  small  stuffy  corn-fields  and  brick-yards  and  greasy 
oil-wells. 

"  I  went  to  a  denominational  college  and  learned  that  since 
dictating  the  Bible,  and  hiring  a  perfect  race  of  ministers  to 
explain  it,  God  has  ne/er  done  much  but  creep  around  and  try 
to  catch  us  disobeying  it.  From  college  I  went  to  New  York, 
to  the  Columbia  Law  School.  And  for  four  years  I  lived. 
Oh,  I  won't  rhapsodize  about  New  York.  It  was  dirty  and 
noisy  and  breathless  and  ghastly  expensive.  But  compared  with 

the  moldy  academy  in  which  I  had  been  smothered 1     I 

went  to  symphonies  twice  a  week.  I  saw  Irving  and  Terry 
and  Duse  and  Bernhardt,  from  the  top  gallery.  I  walked  in 
Gramercy  Park.  And  I  read,  oh,  everything. 

"  Through  a  cousin  I  learned  that  Julius  Flickerbaugh  was 
sick  and  needed  a  partner.  I  came  here.  Julius  got  well.  He 
didn't  like  my  way  of  loafing  five  hours  and  then  doing  my 
work  (really  not  so  badly)  in  one.  We  parted. 

"  When  I  first  came  here  I  swore  I'd  '  keep  up  my  interests.' 
Very  lofty!  I  read  Browning,  and  went  to  Minneapolis  for  the 
theaters.  I  thought  I  was  '  keeping  up/  But  I  guess  the 
Village  Virus  had  me  already.  I  was  reading  four  copies  of 


MAIN   STREET  157 

cheap  fiction-magazines  to  one  poem.  I'd  put  off  the  Min 
neapolis  trips  till  I  simply  had  to  go  there  on  a  lot  of  legal 
matters. 

"A  few  years  ago  I  was  talking  to  a  patent  lawyer  from 

Chicago,  and  I  realized  that I'd  always  felt  so  superior 

to  people  like  Julius  Flickerbaugh,  but  I  saw  that  I  was  as 
provincial  and  behind-the-times  as  Julius.  (Worse!  Julius 
plows  through  the  Literary  Digest  and  the  Outlook  faithfully, 
while  I'm  turning  over  pages  of  a  book  by  Charles  Flandrau 
that  I  already  know  by  heart.) 

"I  decided  to  leave  here.  Stern  resolution.  Grasp  the 
world.  Then  I  found  that  the  Village  Virus  had  me,  absolute/ 
I  didn't  want  to  face  new  streets  and  younger  men — real  com 
petition.  It  was  too  easy  to  go  on  making  out  conveyances 

and  arguing  ditching  cases.  So That's  all  of  the  biography 

of  a  living  dead  man,  except  the  diverting  last  chapter,  the  lies 
about  my  having  been  '  a  tower  of  strength  and  legal  wisdom  ' 
which  some  day  a  preacher  will  spin  over  my  lean  dry  body." 

He  looked  down  at  his  table-desk,  fingering  the  starry 
enameled  vase. 

She  could  not  comment.  She  pictured  herself  running  across 
the  room  to  pat  his  hair.  She  saw  that  his  lips  were  firm, 
under  his  soft  faded  mustache.  She  sat  still,  and  maundered, 
"  I  know.  The  Village  Virus.  Perhaps  it  will  get  me.  Some 

day  I'm  going Oh,  no  matter.  At  least,  I  am  making  you 

talk!  Usually  you  have  to  be  polite  to  my  garrulousness,  but 
now  I'm  sitting  at  your  feet." 

"  It  would  be  rather  nice  to  have  you  literally  sitting  at  my 
feet,  by  a  fire." 

"  Would  you  have  a  fireplace  for  me?  " 

"  Naturally!  Please  don't  snub  me  now!  Let  the  old  man 
rave.  How  old  are  you,  Carol?  " 

"  Twenty-six,  Guy." 

"  Twenty-six!  I  was  just  leaving  New  York,  at  twenty-six. 
I  heard  Patti  sing,  at  twenty-six.  And  now  I'm  forty-seven.  I 
feel  like  a  child,  yet  I'm  old  enough  to  be  your  father.  So  it's 
decently  paternal  to  imagine  you  curled  at  my  feet.  ...  Of 
course  I  hope  it  isn't,  but  well  reflect  the  morals  of  Gopher 
Prairie  by  officially  announcing  that  it  is!  .  .  .  These  stand 
ards  that  you  and  I  live  up  to!  There's  one  thing  that's  the 
matter  with  Gopher  Prairie,  at  least  with  the  ruling-class 
(there  is  a  ruling-class,  despite  all  our  professions  of  democ- 


158  MAIN   STREET 

racy).  And  the  penalty  we  tribal  rulers  pay  is  tru  our  sub 
jects  watch  us  every  minute.  We  can't  get  wholesomely  drunk 
and  relax.  We  have  to  be  so  correct  about  sex  morals,  and 
inconspicuous  clothes,  and  doing  our  commercial  trickery  only 
in  the  traditional  ways,  that  none  of  us  can  live  up  to  it,  and  we 
become  horribly  hypocritical.  Unavoidably.  The  widow-rob 
bing  deacon  of  fiction  can't  help  being  hypocritical.  The 
widows  themselves  demand  it!  They  admire  his  unctuousness. 
And  look  at  me.  Suppose  I  did  dare  to  make  love  to — some 
exquisite  married  woman.  I  wouldn't  admit  it  to  myself.  I 
giggle  with  the  most  revolting  salaciousness  over  La  Vie  Paris- 
ienne,  when  I  get  hold  of  one  in  Chicago,  yet  I  shouldn't  even 
try  to  hold  your  hand.  I'm  broken.  It's  the  historical  Anglo- 
Saxon  way  of  making  life  miserable.  .  .  .  Oh,  my  dear,  I 
haven't  talked  to  anybody  about  myself  and  all  our  selves  for 
years." 

"  Guy!    Can't  we  do  something  with  the  town?    Really?  " 

"No,  we  can't!  "  He  disposed  of  it  like  a  judge  ruling  out 
an  improper  objection;  returned  to  matters  less  uncomfortably 
energetic :  "  Curious.  Most  troubles  are  unnecessary.  We 
have  Nature  beaten;  we  can  make  her  grow  wheat;  we  can  keep 
warm  when  she  sends  blizzards.  So  we  raise  the  devil  just 
for  pleasure— wars,  politics,  race-hatreds,  labor-disputes.  Here 
in  Gopher  Prairie  we've  cleared  the  fields,  and  become  soft, 
so  we  make  ourselves  unhappy  artificially,  at  great  expense  and 
exertion:  Methodists  disliking  Episcopalians,  the  man  with 
the  Hudson  laughing  at  the  man  with  the  flivver.  The  worst 
is  the  commercial  hatred — the  grocer  feeling  that  any  man  who 
doesn't  deal  with  him  is  robbing  him.  What  hurts  me  is  that 
it  applies  to  lawyers  and  doctors  (and  decidedly  to  their  wives! ) 
as  much  as  to  grocers.  The  doctors — you  know  about  that — 
how  your  husband  and  Westlake  and  Gould  dislike  one 
another." 

"No!     I  won't  admit  it!  " 

He  grinned. 

"  Oh,  maybe  once  or  twice,  when  Will  has  positively  known 
of  a  case  where  Doctor — where  one  of  the  others  has  con 
tinued  to  call  on  patients  longer  than  necessary,  he  has 
laughed  about  it,  but " 

He  still  grinned. 

"  No,  really!  And  when  you  say  the  wives  of  the  doctors 
share  these  jealousies Mrs.  McGanum  and  I  haven't  any 


MAIN   STREET  159 

particular  crush  on  each  other;  she's  so  stolid.  But  her 
mother,  Mrs.  Westlake — nobody  could  be  sweeter." 

"  Yes,  I'm  sure  she's  very  bland.  But  I  wouldn't  tell  her  my 
heart's  secrets  if  I  were  you,  my  dear.  I  insist  that  there's 
only  one  professional-man's  wife  in  this  town  who  doesn't 
plot,  and  that  is  you,  you  blessed,  credulous  outsider!  " 

"  I  won't  be  cajoled!  I  won't  believe  that  medicine,  the 
priesthood  of  healing,  can  be  turned  into  a  penny-picking 
business." 

"  See  here:  Hasn't  Kennicott  ever  hinted  to  you  that  you'd 
better  be  nice  to  some  old  woman  because  she  tells  her  friends 
which  doctor  to  call  in?  But  I  oughtn't  to " 

She  remembered  certain  remarks  which  Kennicott  had  of 
fered  regarding  the  Widow  Bogart.  She  flinched,  looked  at 
Guy  beseechingly. 

He  sprang  up,  strode  to  her  with  a  nervous  step,  smoothed 
her  hand.  She  wondered  if  she  ought  to  be  offended  by  his 
caress.  Then  she  wondered  if  he  liked  her  hat,  the  new 
Oriental  turban  of  rose  and  silver  brocade. 

He  dropped  her  hand.  His  elbow  brushed  her  shoulder.  He 
flitted  over  to  the  desk-chair,  his  thin  back  stooped.  He 
picked  up  the  cloisonne  vase.  Across  it  he  peered  at  her 
with  such  loneliness  that  she  was  startled.  But  his  eyes  faded 
into  impersonality  as  he  talked  of  the  jealousies  of  Gopher 
Prairie.  He  stopped  himself  with  a  sharp,  "  Good  Lord, 
Carol,  you're  not  a  jury.  You  are  within  your  legal  rights 
in  refusing  to  be  subjected  to  this  summing-up.  I'm  a  tedious 
old  fool  analyzing  the  obvious,  while  you're  the  spirit  of  re 
bellion.  Tell  me  your  side.  What  is  Gopher  Prairie  to  you?  " 

"A bore!  " 

"  Can  I  help?  " 

"  How  could  you?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  Perhaps  by  listening.  I  haven't  done  that 

tonight.  But  normally Can't  I  be  the  confidant  of 

the  old  French  plays,  the  tiring-maid  with  the  mirror  and  the 
loyal  ears?  " 

"  Oh,  what  is  there  to  confide?  The  people  are  savorless 
and  proud  of  it.  And  even  if  I  liked  you  tremendously,  I 
couldn't  talk  to  you  without  twenty  old  hexes  watching,  whis 
pering." 

"  But  you  will  come  talk  to  me,  once  in  a  while?  " 

"  I'm  not  sure  that  I  shall.    I'm  trying  to  develop  my  own 


160  MAIN   STREET 

large  capacity  for  dullness  and  contentment.  I've  failed  at 
every  positive  thing  I've  tried.  I'd  better  'settle  down,'  as 
they  call  it,  and  be  satisfied  to  be — nothing." 

"  Don't  be  cynical.  It  hurts  me,  in  you.  It's  like  blood  on 
the  wing  of  a  humming-bird." 

"I'm  not  a  humming-bird.  I'm  a  hawk;  a  tiny  leashed 
hawk,  pecked  to  death  by  these  large,  white,  flabby,  wormy 
hens.  But  I  am  grateful  to  you  for  confirming  me  in  the  faith. 
And  I'm  going  home!" 

"  Please  stay  and  have  some  coffee  with  me." 

"  I'd  like  to.  But  they've  succeeded  in  terrorizing  me.  I'm 
afraid  of  what  people  might  say." 

"  I'm  not  afraid  of  that.  I'm  only  afraid  of  what  you  might 
say!  "  He  stalked  to  her;  took  her  unresponsive  hand. 
"Carol!  You  have  been  happy  here  tonight?  (Yes.  I'm 
begging!)  " 

She  squeezed  his  hand  quickly,  then  snatched  hers  away. 
She  had  but  little  of  the  curiosity  of  the  flirt,  and  none  of  the 
intrigante's  joy  in  furtiveness.  If  she  was  the  naive  girl,  Guy 
Pollock  was  the  clumsy  boy.  He  raced  about  the  office;  he 
rammed  his  fists  into  his  pockets.  He  stammered,  "  I — I — I 

Oh,  the  devil !  Why  do  I  awaken  from  smooth  dustiness 

to  this  jagged  rawness?  I'll  make I'm  going  to  trot 

down  the  hall  and  bring  in  the  Dillons,  and  we'll  all  have  coffee 
or  something." 

"  The  Dillons?  " 

"  Yes.  Really  quite  a  decent  young  pair — Harvey  Dillon 
and  his  wife.  He's  a  dentist,  just  come  to  town.  They  live  in  a 
room  behind  his  office,  same  as  I  do  here.  They  don't  know 
much  of  anybody " 

"  I've  heard  of  them.  And  I've  never  thought  to  call.  I'm 
horribly  ashamed.  Do  bring  them " 

She  stopped,  for  no  very  clear  reason,  but  his  expression 
said,  her  faltering  admitted,  that  they  wished  they  had  never 
mentioned  the  Dillons.  With  spurious  enthusiasm  he  said, 
"  Splendid!  I  will."  From  the  door  he  glanced  at  her,  curled 
in  the  peeled  leather  chair.  He  slipped  out,  came  back  with 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Dillon. 

The  four  of  them  drank  rather  bad  coffee  which  Pollock 
made  on  a  kerosene  burner.  They  laughed,  and  spoke  of 
Minneapolis,  and  were  tremendously  tactful;  and  Carol 
started  for  home,  through  the  November  wind. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

SHE  was  marching  home. 

"No.  I  couldn't  fall  in  love  with  him.  I  like  him,  very 
much.  But  he's  too  much  of  a  recluse.  Could  I  kiss  him? 

No!  No!  Guy  Pollock  at  twenty-six I  could  have  kissed 

him  then,  maybe,  even  if  I  were  married  to  some  one  else,  and 
probably  I'd  have  been  glib  in  persuading  myself  that '  it  wasn't 
really  wrong/ 

"  The  amazing  thing  is  that  I'm  not  more  amazed  at  my 
self.  I,  the  virtuous  young  matron.  Am  I  to  be  trusted? 
If  the  Prince  Charming  came 

"  A  Gopher  Prairie  housewife,  married  a  year,  and  yearning 
for  a  'Prince  Charming'  like  a  bachfisch  of  sixteen!  They 
say  that  marriage  is  a  magic  change.  But  I'm  not  changed. 
But 

"No!  I  wouldn't  want  to  fall  in  love,  even  if  the  Prince  did 
come.  I  wouldn't  want  to  hurt  Will.  I  am  fond  of  Will.  I 
am!  He  doesn't  stir  me,  not  any  longer.  But  I  depend  on 
him.  He  is  home  and  children. 

"  I  wonder  when  we  will  begin  to  have  children?  I  do 
want  them. 

"  I  wonder  whether  I  remembered  to  tell  Bea  to  have 
hominy  tomorrow,  instead  of  oatmeal?  She  will  have  gone  to 
bed  by  now.  Perhaps  I'll  be  up  early  enough 

"  Ever  so  fond  of  Will.  I  wouldn't  hurt  him,  even  if  I  had 
to  lose  the  mad  love.  If  the  Prince  came  I'd  look  once  at  him, 
and  run.  Darn  fast!  Oh,  Carol,  you  are  not  heroic  nor 
fine.  You  are  the  immutable  vulgar  young  female. 

"  But  I'm  not  the  faithless  wife  who  enjoys  confiding  that 
she's  '  misunderstood.'  Oh,  I'm  not,  I'm  not! 

"  Am  I? 

"  At  least  I  didn't  whisper  to  Guy  about  Will's  faults  and 
his  blindness  to  my  remarkable  soul.  I  didn't!  Matter  of 
fact,  Will  probably  understands  me  perfectly!  If  only — if 
lie  would  just  back  me  up  in  rousing  the  town. 

"  How  many,  how  incredibly  many  wives  there  must  be  who 
tingle  over  the  first  Guy  Pollock  who  smiles  at  them.  No!  I 

161 


162  MAIN   STREET 

will  not  be  one  of  that  herd  of  yearners!  The  coy  virgin 
brides.  Yet  probably  if  the  Prince  were  young  and  dared  to 
face  life 

"  I'm  not  half  as  well  oriented  as  that  Mrs.  Dillon.  So 
obviously  adoring  her  dentist!  And  seeing  Guy  only  as  an 
eccentric  fogy. 

"  They  weren't  silk,  Mrs.  Dillon's  stockings.  They  were 
lisle.  Her  legs  are  nice  and  slim.  But  no  nicer  than  mine.  I 
hate  cotton  tops  on  silk  stockings.  .  .  .  Are  my  ankles  get 
ting  fat?  I  will  not  have  fat  ankles! 

"  No.  I  am  fond  of  Will.  His  work — one  farmer  he  pulls 
through  diphtheria  is  worth  all  my  yammering  for  a  castle  in 
Spain.  A  castle  with  baths. 

"  This  hat  is  so  tight.    I  must  stretch  it.    Guy  liked  it. 

"  There's  the  house.  I'm  awfully  chilly.  Time  to  get  out  the 
fur  coat.  I  wonder  if  I'll  ever  have  a  beaver  coat?  Nutria  is 
not  the  same  thing!  Beaver — glossy.  Like  to  run  my  fingers 
over  it.  Guy's  mustache  like  beaver.  How  utterly  absurd! 

"  I  am,  I  am  fond  of  Will,  and Can't  I  ever  find  another 

word  than  '  fond  '? 

"He's  home.     He'll  think  I  was  out  late. 

"  Why  can't  he  ever  remember  to  pull  down  the  shades?  Cy 
Bogart  and  all  the  beastly  boys  peeping  in.  But  the  poor 
dear,  he's  absent-minded  about  minute — minush — whatever  the 
word  is.  He  has  so  much  worry  and  work,  while  I  do  nothing 
but  jabber  to  Bea. 

"  I  mustn't  forget  the  hominy " 

She  was  flying  into  the  hall.  Kennicott  looked  up  from  the 
Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association. 

"Hello!     What  time  did  you  get  back?"  she  cried. 

"  About  nine.  You  been  gadding.  Here  it  is  past  eleven!  " 
Good-natured  yet  not  quite  approving. 

"  Did  it  feel  neglected?  " 

"  Well,  you  didn't  remember  to  close  the  lower  draft  in  the 
furnace." 

"  Oh,  I'm  so  sorry.  But  I  don't  often  forget  things  like 
that,  do  I?  " 

She  dropped  into  his  lap  and  (after  he  had  jerked  back  his 
head  to  save  his  eye-glasses,  and  removed  the  glasses,  and 
settled  her  in  a  position  less  cramping  to  his  legs,  and  casually 
cleared  his  throat)  he  kissed  her  amiably,  and  remarked: 

"  Nope,  I  must  say  you're  fairly  good  about  things  like  that. 


MAIN   STREET  163 

I  wasn't  kicking.  I  just  meant  I  wouldn't  want  the  fire  to  go 
out  on  us.  Leave  that  draft  open  and  the  fire  might  burn  up 
and  go  out  on  us.  And  the  nights  are  beginning  to  get  pretty 
cold  again.  Pretty  cold  on  my  drive.  I  put  the  side-curtains 
up,  it  was  so  chilly.  But  the  generator  is  working  all  right 
now." 

"  Yes.    It  is  chilly.    But  I  feel  fine  after  my  walk." 

"  Go  walking?  " 

"  I  went  up  to  see  the  Perrys."  By  a  definite  act  of  will  she 
added  the  truth:  "  They  weren't  in.  And  I  saw  Guy  Pollock. 
Dropped  into  his  office." 

"  Why,  you  haven't  been  sitting  and  chinning  with  him 
till  eleven  o'clock?  " 

"  Of  course  there  were  some  other  people  there  and > 

Will!  What  do  you  think  of  Dr.  Westlake?  " 

"Westlake?    Why?" 

"  I  noticed  him  on  the  street  today." 

"Was  he  limping?  If  the  poor  fish  would  have  his  teeth 
X-rayed,  I'll  bet  nine  and  a  half  cents  he'd  find  an  abscess 
there.  *  Rheumatism  '  he  calls  it.  Rheumatism,  hell!  He's 
behind  the  times.  Wonder  he  doesn't  bleed  himself!  Wellllllll 

"  A  profound  and  serious  yawn.  "  I  hate  to  break  up  the 

party,  but  it's  getting  late,  and  a  doctor  never  knows  when 
he'll  get  routed  out  before  morning."  (She  remembered  that 
he  had  given  this  explanation,  in  these  words,  not  less  than 
thirty  times  in  the  year.)  "  I  guess  we  better  be  trotting  up 
to  bed.  I've  wound  the  clock  and  looked  at  the  furnace.  Did 
you  lock  the  front  door  when  you  came  in?  " 

They  trailed  up-stairs,  after  he  had  turned  out  the  lights  and 
twice  tested  the  front  door  to  make  sure  it  was  fast. 
While  they  talked  they  were  preparing  for  bed.  Carol  still 
sought  to  maintain  privacy  by  undressing  behind  the  screen 
of  the  closet  door.  Kennicott  was  not  so  reticent.  Tonight,  as 
every  night,  she  was  irritated  by  having  to  push  the  old  plush 
chair  out  of  the  way  before  she  could  open  the  closet  door. 
Every  time  she  opened  the  door  she  shoved  the  chair.  Ten 
times  an  hour.  But  Kennicott  liked  to  have  the  chair  in  the 
room,  and  there  was  no  place  for  it  except  in  front  of  the 
closet. 

She  pushed  it,  felt  angry,  hid  her  anger.  Kennicott  was 
yawning,  more  portentously.  The  room  smelled  stale.  She 
shrugged  and  became  chatty: 


164  MAIN   STREET 

"You  were  speaking  of  Dr.  Westlake.  Tell  me — you've 
never  summed  him  up:  Is  he  really  a  good  doctor?  " 

"  Oh  yes,  he's  a  wise  old  coot." 

("  There!  You  see  there  is  no  medical  rivalry.  Not  in  my 
house!  "  she  said  triumphantly  to  Guy  Pollock.) 

She  hung  her  silk  petticoat  on  a  closet  hook,  and  went  on, 
"  Dr.  Westlake  is  so  gentle  and  scholarly — — " 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  as  I'd  say  he  was  such  a  whale  of  a 
scholar.  I've  always  had  a  suspicion  he  did  a  good  deal  of 
four-flushing  about  that.  He  likes  to  have  people  think  he 
keeps  up  his  French  and  Greek  and  Lord  knows  what  all ;  and 
he's  always  got  an  old  Dago  book  lying  around  the  sitting-room, 
but  I've  got  a  hunch  he  reads  detective  stories  'bout  like  the 
rest  of  us.  And  I  don't  know  where  he'd  ever  learn  so  dog 
gone  many  languages  anyway!  He  kind  of  lets  people  assume 
he  went  to  Harvard  or  Berlin  or  Oxford  or  somewhere,  but  I 
looked  him  up  in  the  medical  directory,  and  he  graduated  from 
a  hick  college  in  Pennsylvania,  'way  back  in  1861!  " 

"  But  this  is  the  important  thing:  Is  he  an  honest  doctor?  " 

"  How  do  you  mean  '  honest  7  Depends  on  what  you 
mean." 

"  Suppose  you  were  sick.  Would  you  call  him  in?  Would 
you  let  me  call  him  in?  " 

"Not  if  I  were  well  enough  to  cuss  and  bite,  I  wouldn't! 
No,  sir!  I  wouldn't  have  the  old  fake  in  the  house.  Makes 
me  tired,  his  everlasting  palavering  and  soft-soaping.  He's 
all  right  for  an  ordinary  bellyache  or  holding  some  fool  woman's 
hand,  but  I  wouldn't  call  him  in  for  an  honest-to-God  illnessf 
not  much  I  wouldn't,  no-sir  I  You  know  I  don't  do  much  back 
biting,  but  same  time I'll  tell  you,  Carrrie:  I've  never 

got  over  being  sore  at  Westlake  for  the  way  he  treated  Mrs. 
Jonderquist.  Nothing  the  matter  with  her,  what  she  really 
needed  was  a  rest,  but  Westlake  kept  calling  on  her  and  calling 
on  her  for  weeks,  almost  every  day,  and  he  sent  her  a  good 
big  fat  bill,  too,  you  can  bet!  I  never  did  forgive  him  for  that. 
Nice  decent  hard-working  people  like  the  Jonderquists !  " 

In  her  batiste  nightgown  she  was  standing  at  the  bureau  en 
gaged  in  the  invariable  rites  of  wishing  that  she  had  a  real 
dressing-table  with  a  triple  mirror,  of  bending  toward  the 
streaky  glass  and  raising  her  chin  to  inspect  a  pin-head  mole 
on  her  throat,  and  finally  of  brushing  her  hair.  In  rhythm  to 
the  strokes  she  went  on: 


MAIN   STREET  165 

"  But,  Will,  there  isn't  any  of  what  you  might  call  financial 
rivalry  between  you  and  the  partners — Westlake  and  Mc- 
Ganum — is  there?  " 

He  flipped  into  bed  with  a  solemn  back-somersault  and  a 
ludicrous  kick  of  his  heels  as  he  tucked  his  legs  under  the 
blankets.  He  snorted,  "  Lord  no!  I  never  begrudge  any  man 
a  nickel  he  can  get  away  from  me — fairly." 

"  But  is  Westlake  fair?    Isn't  he  sly?  " 

"  Sly  is  the  word.    He's  a  fox,  that  boy!  " 

She  saw  Guy  Pollock's  grin  in  the  mirror.    She  flushed. 

Kennicott,  with  his  arms  behind  his  head,  was  yawning: 

"  Yump.  He's  smooth,  too  smooth.  But  I  bet  I  make  prett' 
near  as  much  as  Westlake  and  McGanum  both  together,  though 
I've  never  wanted  to  grab  more  than  my  just  share.  If  any 
body  wants  to  go  to  the  partners  instead  of  to  me,  that's  his 
business.  Though  I  must  say  it  makes  me  tired  when  West- 
lake  gets  hold  of  the  Dawsons.  Here  Luke  Dawson  had  been 
coming  to  me  for  every  toeache  and  headache  and  a  lot  of 
little  things  that  just  wasted  my  time,  and  then  when  his 
grandchild  was  here  last  summer  and  had  summer-complaint,  I 
suppose,  or  something  like  that,  probably — you  know,  the  time 
you  and  I  drove  up  to  Lac-qui-Meurt — why,  Westlake  got  hold 
of  Ma  Dawson,  and  scared  her  to  death,  and  made  her  think 
the  kid  had  appendicitis,  and,  by  golly,  if  he  and  McGanum 
didn't  operate,  and  holler  their  heads  off  about  the  terrible 
adhesions  they  found,  and  what  a  regular  Charley  and  Will 
Mayo  they  were  for  classy  surgery.  They  let  on  that  if  they'd 
waited  two  hours  more  the  kid  would  have  developed  peritonitis, 
and  God  knows  what  all;  and  then  they  collected  a  nice  fat 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  And  probably  they'd  have  charged 
three  hundred,  if  they  hadn't  been  afraid  of  me!  I'm  no  hog, 
but  I  certainly  do  hate  to  give  old  Luke  ten  dollars'  worth  of 
advice  for  a  dollar  and  a  half,  and  then  see  a  hundred  and 
fifty  go  glimmering.  And  if  I  can't  do  a  better  'pendectomy 
than  either  Westlake  or  McGanum,  I'll  eat  my  hat!  " 

As  she  crept  into  bed  she  was  dazzled  by  Guy's  blazing 
grin.  She  experimented: 

"  But  Westlake  is  cleverer  than  his  son-in-law,  don't  you 
think?  " 

"  Yes,  Westlake  may  be  old-fashioned  and  all  that,  but 
he's  got  a  certain  amount  of  intuition,  while  McGanum  goes 
into  everything  bull-headed,  and  butts  his  way  through  liks 


166  MAIN   STREET 

a  damn  yahoo,  and  tries  to  argue  his  patients  into  having 
whatever  he  diagnoses  them  as  having!  About  the  best  thing 
Mac  can  do  is  to  stick  to  baby-snatching.  He's  just  about 
on  a  par  with  this  bone-pounding  chiropractor  female,  Mrs. 
Mattie  Gooch." 

"  Mrs.  Westlake  and  Mrs.  McGanum,  though — they're  nice. 
They've  been  awfully  cordial  to  me." 

"  Well,  no  reason  why  they  shouldn't  be,  is  there?  Oh, 
they're  nice  enough — though  you  can  bet  your  bottom  dollar 
they're  both  plugging  for  their  husbands  all  the  time,  trying 
to  get  the  business.  And  I  don't  know  as  I  call  it  so  damn 
cordial  in  Mrs.  McGanum  when  I  holler  at  her  on  the  street 
and  she  nods  back  like  she  had  a  sore  neck.  Still,  she's  all 
right.  It's  Ma  Westlake  that  makes  the  mischief,  pussyfooting 
around  all  the  time.  But  I  wouldn't  trust  any  Westlake  out 
of  the  whole  lot,  and  while  Mrs.  McGanum  seems  square 
enough,  you  don't  never  want  to  forget  that  she's  Westlake's 
daughter.  You  bet!  " 

"  What  about  Dr.  Gould?  Don't  you  think  he's  worse  than 
either  Westlake  or  McGanum?  He's  so  cheap — drinking,  and 
playing  pool,  and  always  smoking  cigars  in  such  a  cocky 
way " 

"  That's  all  right  now!  Terry  Gould  is  a  good  deal  of  a  tin 
horn  sport,  but  he  knows  a  lot  about  medicine,  and  don't  you 
forget  it  for  one  second!  " 

She  stared  down  Guy's  grin,  and  asked  more  cheerfully,  "  Is 
he  honest,  too?  " 

"  Ooooooooooo!  Gosh  I'm  sleepy!  "  He  burrowed  beneath 
the  bedclothes  in  a  luxurious  stretch,  and  came  up  like  a  diver, 
shaking  his  head,  as  he  complained,  "How's  that?  Who? 
Terry  Gould  honest?  Don't  start  me  laughing — I'm  too  nice 
and  sleepy!  I  didn't  say  he  was  honest.  I  said  he  had  savvy 
enough  to  find  the  index  in  '  Gray's  Anatomy,'  which  is  more 
than  McGanum  can  do!  But  I  didn't  say  anything  about  his 
being  honest.  He  isn't.  Terry  is  crooked  as  a  dog's  hind  leg. 
He's  done  me  more  than  one  dirty  trick.  He  told  Mrs. 
Glorbach,  seventeen  miles  out,  that  I  wasn't  up-to-date  in 
obstetrics.  Fat  lot  of  good  it  did  him!  She  came  right  in 
and  told  me!  And  Terry's  lazy.  He'd  let  a  pneumonia  patient 
choke  rather  than  interrupt  a  poker  game." 

"  Oh  no.    I  can't  believe " 

"  Well  now,  I'm  telling  you!  " 


MAIN   STREET  167 

"Does  he  play  much  poker?  Dr.  Dillon  told  me  that  Dr. 
Gould  wanted  him  to  play " 

"  Dillon  told  you  what?  Where'd  you  meet  Dillon?  He's 
just  come  to  town." 

"  He  and  his  wife  were  at  Mr.  Pollock's  tonight." 

"  Say,  uh,  what'd  you  think  of  them?  Didn't  Dillon  strike 
you  as  pretty  light- waisted?  " 

"  Why  no.  He  seemed  intelligent.  I'm  sure  he's  much  more 
wide-awake  than  our  dentist." 

"  Well  now,  the  old  man  is  a  good  dentist.    He  knows  his 

business.    And  Dillon I  wouldn't  cuddle  up  to  the  Dillons 

too  close,  if  I  were  you.    All  right  for  Pollock,  and  that's  none 

of  our  business,  but  we I  think  I'd  just  give  the  Dillons 

the  glad  hand  and  pass  'em  up." 

"  But  why?    He  isn't  a  rival." 

"  That's — all — right!  "  Kennicott  was  aggressively  awake 
now.  "  He'll  work  right  in  with  Westlake  and  McGanum. 
Matter  of  fact,  I  suspect  they  were  largely  responsible  for  his 
locating  here.  They'll  be  sending  him  patients,  and  he'll  send* 
all  that  he  can  get  hold  of  to  them.  I  don't  trust  anybody 
that's  too  much  hand-in-glove  with  Westlake.  You  give  Dillon 
a  shot  at  some  fellow  that's  just  bought  a  farm  here  and  drifts 
into  town  to  get  his  teeth  looked  at,  and  after  Dillon  gets 
through  with  him,  you'll  see  him  edging  around  to  Westlake 
and  McGanum,  every  time!  " 

Carol  reached  for  her  blouse,  which  hung  on  a  chair  by 
the  bed.  She  draped  it  about  her  shoulders,  and  sat  up  study 
ing  Kennicott,  her  chin  in  her  hands.  In  the  gray  light  from 
the  small  electric  bulb  down  the  hall  she  could  see  that  he  was 
frowning. 

"  Will,  this  is — I  must  get  this  straight.  Some  one  said  to 
me  the  other  day  that  in  towns  like  this,  even  more  than  in 
cities,  all  the  doctors  hate  each  other,  because  of  the 
money " 

"  Who  said  that?  " 

"  It  doesn't  matter." 

"  I'll  bet  a  hat  it  was  your  Vida  Sherwin.  She's  a  brainy 
woman,  but  she'd  be  a  damn  sight  brainier  if  she  kept  her 
mouth  shut  and  didn't  let  so  much  of  her  brains  ooze  out 
that  way." 

"Will!  O  Will!  That's  horrible!  Aside  from  the  vul 
garity Some  ways,  Vida  is  my  best  friend.  Even  if 


i68  MAIN   STREET 

she  had  said  it.     Which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  she  didn't." 

He  reared  up  his  thick  shoulders,  in  absurd  pink  and  green 
flannelette  pajamas.  He  sat  straight,  and  irritatingly  snapped 
his  fingers,  and  growled: 

"  Well,  if  she  didn't  say  it,  let's  forget  her.  Doesn't  make 
any  difference  who  said  it,  anyway.  The  point  is  that  you 
believe  it.  God!  To  think  you  don't  understand  me  any 
better  than  that!  Money!  " 

("  This  is  the  first  real  quarrel  we've  ever  had,"  she  was 
agonizing.) 

He  thrust  out  his  long  arm  and  snatched  his  wrinkly  vest 
from  a  chair.  He  took  out  a  cigar,  a  match.  He  tossed  the 
vest  on  the  floor.  He  lighted  the  cigar  and  puffed  savagely. 
He  broke  up  the  match  and  snapped  the  fragments  at  the  foot 
board. 

She  suddenly  saw  the  foot-board  of  the  bed  as  the  foot- 
stone  of  the  grave  of  love. 

The  room  was  drab-colored  and  ill-ventilated — Kennicott 
did  not  "  believe  in  opening  the  windows  so  darn  wide  that  you 
heat  all  outdoors."  The  stale  air  seemed  never  to  change.  In 
the  light  from  the  hall  they  were  two  lumps  of  bedclothes 
with  shoulders  and  tousled  heads  attached. 

She  begged,  "  I  didn't  mean  to  wake  you  up,  dear.  And 
please  don't  smoke.  You've  been  smoking  so  much.  Please 
go  back  to  sleep.  I'm  sorry." 

"  Being  sorry  's  all  right,  but  I'm  going  to  tell  you  one  or 
two  things.  This  falling  for  anybody's  say-so  about  medical 
jealousy  and  competition  is  simply  part  and  parcel  of  your 
usual  willingness  to  think  the  worst  you  possibly  can  of  us 
poor  dubs  in  Gopher  Prairie.  Trouble  with  women  like  you 
is,  you  always  want  to  argue.  Can't  take  things  the  way  they 
are.  Got  to  argue.  Well,  I'm  not  going  to  argue  about  this 
in  any  way,  shape,  manner,  or  form.  Trouble  with  you  is, 
you  don't  make  any  effort  to  appreciate  us.  You're  so  damned 
superior,  and  think  the  city  is  such  a  hell  of  a  lot  finer  place, 
and  you  want  us  to  do  what  you  want,  all  the  time " 

"That's  not  true!  It's  I  who  make  the  effort.  It's  they— 
it's  you — who  stand  back  and  criticize.  I  have  to  come  over 
to  the  town's  opinion;  I  have  to  devote  myself  to  their  in 
terests.  They  can't  even  see  my  interests,  to  say  nothing  of 
adopting  them.  I  get  ever  so  excited  about  their  old  Lake 
Minniemashie  and  the  cottages,  but  they  simply  guffaw  (in 


MAIN   STREET  169 

that  lovely  friendly  way  you  advertise  so  much)  if  I  speak 
of  wanting  to  see  Taormina  also." 

"  Sure,  Tormina,  whatever  that  is — some  nice  expensive 
millionaire  colony,  I  suppose.  Sure ;  that's  the  idea ;  champagne 
taste  and  beer  income;  and  make  sure  that  we  never  will  have 
more  than  a  beer  income,  too!  " 

"  Are  you  by  any  chance  implying  that  I  am  not  econom 
ical?  " 

"  Well,  I  hadn't  intended  to,  but  since  you  bring  it  up 
yourself,  I  don't  mind  saying  the  grocery  bills  are  about  twice 
what  they  ought  to  be." 

"  Yes,  they  probably  are.  I'm  not  economical.  I  can't  be. 
Thanks  to  you!  " 

"  Where  d'  you  get  that  '  thanks  to  you  7  " 

"  Please  don't  be  quite  so  colloquial — or  shall  I  say  vulgar?  " 

"  I'll  be  as  damn  colloquial  as  I  want  to.  How  do  you  get 
that  '  thanks  to  you '?  Here  about  a  year  ago  you  jump  me 
for  not  remembering  to  give  you  money.  Well,  I'm  reasonable. 
I  didn't  blame  you,  and  I  said  I  was  to  blame.  But  have 
I  ever  forgotten  it  since — practically?  " 

"No.  You  haven't— practically!  But  that  isn't  it.  I 
ought  to  have  an  allowance.  I  will,  too!  I  must  have  an 
agreement  for  a  regular  stated  amount,  every  month." 

"  Fine  idea!  Of  course  a  doctor  gets  a  regular  stated 
amount!  Sure!  A  thousand  one  month — and  lucky  if  he 
makes  a  hundred  the  next." 

"Very  well  then,  a  percentage.  Or  something  else.  No 
matter  how  much  you  vary,  you  can  make  a  rough  average 
for " 

"  But  what's  the  idea?  What  are  you  trying  to  get  at? 
Mean  to  say  I'm  unreasonable?  Think  I'm  so  unreliable  and 
tightwad  that  you've  got  to  tie  me  down  with  a  contract? 
By  God,  that  hurts!  I  thought  I'd  been  pretty  generous  and 
decent,  and  I  took  a  lot  of  pleasure — thinks  I, l  she'll  be  tickled 
when  I  hand  her  over  this  twenty ' — or  fifty,  or  whatever  it 
was;  and  now  seems  you  been  wanting  to  make  it  a  kind  of 
alimony.  Me,  like  a  poor  fool,  thinking  I  was  liberal  all  the 
while,  and  you " 

"  Please  stop  pitying  yourself!  You're  having  a  beautiful 
time  feeling  injured.  I  admit  all  you  say.  Certainly.  You've 
given  me  money  both  freely  and  amiably.  Quite  as  if  I  were 
your  mistress!  " 


170  MAIN   STREET 

"  Carrie!  " 

"  I  mean  it!  What  was  a  magnificent  spectacle  of  generosity 
to  you  was  humiliation  to  me.  You  gave  me  money — gave  it 
to  your  mistress,  if  she  was  complaisant,  and  then  you- " 

"  Carrie!  " 

"(Don't  interrupt  me!) — then  you  felt  you'd  discharged 
all  obligation.  Well,  hereafter  I'll  refuse  your  money,  as  a  gift. 
Either  I'm  your  partner,  in  charge  of  the  household  department 
of  our  business,  with  a  regular  budget  for  it,  or  else  I'm 
nothing.  If  I'm  to  be  a  mistress,  I  shall  choose  my  lovers.  Oh, 
I  hate  it — I  hate  it — this  smirking  and  hoping  for  money — and 
then  not  even  spending  it  on  jewels  as  a  mistress  has  a  right 
to,  but  spending  it  on  double-boilers  and  socks  for  you! 
Yes  indeed!  You're  generous!  You  give  me  a  dollar,  right 
out — the  only  proviso  is  that  I  must  spend  it  on  a  tie  for  youf 
And  you  give  it  when  and  as  you  wish.  How  can  I  be  any^ 
thing  but  uneconomical?  " 

"  Oh  well,  of  course,  looking  at  it  that  way " 

"  I  can't  shop  around,  can't  buy  in  large  quantities,  have 
to  stick  to  stores  where  I  have  a  charge  account,  good  deal 
of  the  time,  can't  plan  because  I  don't  know  how  much  money 
I  can  depend  on.  That's  what  I  pay  for  your  charming  sen 
timentalities  about  giving  so  generously.  You  make  me " 

"  Wait!  Wait!  You  know  you're  exaggerating.  You  never 
thought  about  that  mistress  stuff  till  just  this  minute!  Matter 
of  fact,  you  never  have  '  smirked  and  hoped  for  money/  But 
all  the  same,  you  may  be  right.  You  ought  to  run  the  house 
hold  as  a  business.  I'll  figure  out  a  definite  plan  tomorrow, 
and  hereafter  you'll  be  on  a  regular  amount  or  percentage,  with 
your  own  checking  account." 

"  Oh,  that  is  decent  of  you!  "  She  turned  toward  him, 
trying  to  be  affectionate.  But  his  eyes  were  pink  and  unlovely 
in  the  flare  of  tjie  match  with  which  he  lighted  his  dead  and 
malodorous  cigar.  His  head  drooped,  and  a  ridge  of  flesh 
scattered  with  pale  small  bristles  bulged  out  under  his  chin. 

She  sat  in  abeyance  till  he  croaked: 

"  No.  'Tisn't  especially  decent.  It's  just  fair.  And  God 
knows  I  want  to  be  fair.  But  I  expect  others  to  be  fair,  too. 
And  you're  so  high  and  mighty  about  people.  Take  Sam 
Clark;  best  soul  that  ever  lived,  honest  and  loyal  and  a  damn 
good  fellow " 

("  Yes,  and  a  good  shot  at  ducks,  don't  forget  that!  ") 


MAIN    STREET  171 

("  Well,  and  he  is  a  good  shot,  too! )  Sam  drops  around  in 
the  evening  to  sit  and  visit,  and  by  golly  just  because  he 
takes  a  dry  smoke  and  rolls  his  cigar  around  in  his  mouth,  and 
maybe  spits  a  few  times,  you  look  at  him  as  if  he  was  a  hog. 
Oh,  you  didn't  know  I  was  onto  you,  and  I  certainly  hope 
Sam  hasn't  noticed  it,  but  I  never  miss  it." 

"  I  have  felt  that  way.  Spitting — ugh !  But  I'm  sorry  you 
caught  my  thoughts.  I  tried  to  be  nice;  I  tried  to  hide  them." 

"  Maybe  I  catch  a  whole  lot  more  than  you  think  I  do  I  " 

"  Yes,  perhaps  you  do." 

"And  d'  you  know  why  Sam  doesn't  light  his  cigar  when 
he's  here?  " 

"  Why?  " 

"  He's  so  darn  afraid  you'll  be  offended  if  he  smokes.  You 
scare  him.  Every  time  he  speaks  of  the  weather  you  jump 
him  because  he  ain't  talking  about  poetry  or  Gertie — Goethe? 
— or  some  other  highbrow  junk.  You've  got  him  so  leery  he 
scarcely  dares  to  come  here." 

"  Oh,  I  am  sorry.  (Though  I'm  sure  it's  you  who  are  exag 
gerating  now.") 

"  Well  now,  I  don't  know  as  I  am!  And  I  can  tell  you  one 
thing:  if  you  keep  on  you'll  manage  to  drive  away  every  friend 
I've  got." 

"  That  would  be  horrible  of  me.  You  know  I  don't  mean 

to Will,  what  is  it  about  me  that  frightens  Sam— if  I 

dc  frighten  him." 

"  Oh,  you  do,  all  right!  'Stead  of  putting  his  legs  up  on 
another  chair,  and  unbuttoning  his  vest,  and  telling  a  good 
story  or  maybe  kidding  me  about  something,  he  sits  on  the 
edge  of  his  chair  and  tries  to  make  conversation  about  politics, 
and  he  doesn't  even  cuss,  and  Sam's  never  real  comfortable 
unless  he  can  cuss  a  little!  " 

"  In  other  words,  he  isn't  comfortable  unless  he  can  behave 
like  a  peasant  in  a  mud  hut!  " 

"  Now  that'll  be  about  enough  of  that !  You  want  to  know 
how  you  scare  him?  First  you  deliberately  fire  some  question 
at  him  that  you  know  darn  well  he  can't  answer — any  fool 
could  see  you  were  experimenting  with  him — and  then  you 
shock  him  by  talking  of  mistresses  or  something,  like  you  were 
doing  just  now " 

"  Of  course  the  pure  Samuel  never  speaks  of  such  erring 
ladies  in  his  private  conversations!  " 


172  MAIN   STREET 

"Not  when  there's  ladies  around!  You  can  bet  your  lite 
on  that!  " 

"  So  the  impurity  lies  in  failing  to  pretend  that " 

"  Now  we  won't  go  into  all  that — eugenics  or  whatever  damn 
fad  you  choose  to  call  it.  As  I  say,  first  you  shock  him,  and 
then  you  become  so  darn  flighty  that  nobody  can  follow  you. 
Either  you  want  to  dance,  or  you  bang  the  piano,  or  else  you 
get  moody  as  the  devil  and  don't  want  to  talk  or  anything 
else.  If  you  must  be  temperamental,  why  can't  you  be  that 
way  by  yourself?  " 

"  My  dear  man,  there's  nothing  I'd  like  better  than  to  be 
by  myself  occasionally!  To  have  a  room  of  my  own!  I 
suppose  you  expect  me  to  sit  here  and  dream  delicately  and 
satisfy  my  '  temperamentality '  while  you  wander  in  from  the 
bathroom  with  lather  all  over  your  face,  and  shout,  l  Seen  my 
brown  pants?  ' " 

"Huh!  "  He  did  not  sound  impressed.  He  made  no  an 
swer.  He  turned  out  of  bed,  his  feet  making  one  solid  thud 
on  the  floor.  He  marched  from  the  room,  a  grotesque  figure 
in  baggy  union-pajamas.  She  heard  him  drawing  a  drink  of 
water  at  the  bathroom  tap.  She  was  furious  at  the  con- 
temptuousness  of  his  exit.  She  snuggled  down  in  bed,  and 
looked  away  from  him  as  he  returned.  He  ignored  her.  As 
he  flumped  into  bed  he  yawned,  and  casually  stated: 

"  Well,  you'll  have  plenty  of  privacy  when  we  build  a  new 
house." 

"When!  " 

"  Oh,  I'll  build  it  all  right,  don't  you  fretl  But  of  course 
I  don't  expect  ajiy  credit  for  it." 

Now  it  was  she  who  grunted  "  Huh!  "  and  ignored  him, 
and  felt  independent  and  masterful  as  she  shot  up  out  of  bed, 
turned  her  back  on  him,  fished  a  lone  and  petrified  chocolate 
out  of  her  glove-box  in  the  top  right-hand  drawer  of  the 
bureau,  gnawed  at  it,  found  that  it  had  cocoanut  filling,  said 
"  Damn!  "  wished  that  she  had  not  said  it,  so  that  she  might 
be  superior  to  his  colloquialism,  and  hurled  the  chocolate  into 
the  wastebasket,  where  it  made  an  evil  and  mocking  clatter 
among  the  debris  of  torn  linen  collars  and  toothpaste  box. 
Then,  in  great  dignity  and  self-dramatization,  she  returned  to 
bed. 

All  this  time  he  had  been  talking  on,  embroidering  his  as 
sertion  that  he  "  didn't  expect  any  credit."  She  was  reflecting 


MAIN   STREET  173 

that  he  was  a  rustic,  that  she  hated  him,  that  she  had  been 
insane  to  marry  him,  that  she  had  married  him  only  because 
she  was  tired  of  work,  that  she  must  get  her  long  gloves 
cleaned,  that  she  would  never  do  anything  more  for  him,  and 
that  she  mustn't  forget  his  hominy  for  breakfast.  She  was 
roused  to  attention  by  his  storming: 

"  I'm  a  fool  to  think  about  a  new  house.  By  the  time  I 
get  it  built  you'll  probably  have  succeeded  in  your  plan  to  get 
me  completely  in  Dutch  with  every  friend  and  every  patient 
I've  got." 

She  sat  up  with  a  bounce.  She  said  coldly,  "  Thank  you 
very  much  for  revealing  your  real  opinion  of  me.  If  that's  the 
way  you  feel,  if  I'm  such  a  hindrance  to  you,  I  can't  stay 
under  this  roof  another  minute.  And  I  am  perfectly  well  able 
to  earn  my  own  living.  I  will  go  at  once,  and  you  may  get  a 
divorce  at  your  pleasure!  What  you  want  is  a  nice  sweet  cow 
of  a  woman  who  will  enjoy  having  your  dear  friends  talk  about 
the  weather  and  spit  on  the  floor!  " 

"Tut!     Don't  be  a  fool!  " 

"  You  will  very  soon  find  out  whether  I'm  a  fool  or  not! 
I  mean  it!  Do  you  think  I'd  stay  here  one  second  after  I 
found  out  that  I  was  injuring  you?  At  least  I  have  enough 
sense  of  justice  not  to  do  that." 

"  Please  stop  flying  off  at  tangents,  Carrie.    This " 

"  Tangents?    Tangents!    Let  me  tell  you " 

" isn't  a  theater-play;  it's  a  serious  effort  to  have  us 

get  together  on  fundamentals.  We've  both  been  cranky,  and 
said  a  lot  of  things  we  didn't  mean.  I  wish  we  were  a  couple  o' 
bloomin'  poets  and  just  talked  about  roses  and  moonshine,  but 
we're  human.  All  right.  Let's  cut  out  jabbing  at  each  other. 
Let's  admit  we  both  do  fool  things.  See  here:  You  know  you 
feel  superior  to  folks.  You're  not  as  bad  as  I  say,  but  you're 
not  as  good  as  you  say — not  by  a  long  shot!  What's  the  reason 
you're  so  superior?  Why  can't  you  take  folks  as  they  are?  " 

Her  preparations  for  stalking  out  of  the  Doll's  House  were 
not  yet  visible.  She  mused: 

"  I  think  perhaps  it's  my  childhood."  She  halted.  When 
she  went  on  her  voice  had  an  artificial  sound,  her  words  the 
bookish  quality  of  emotional  meditation.  "  My  father  was  the 
tenderest  man  in  the  world,  but  he  did  feel  superior  to  ordinary 

people.  Well,  he  was!  And  the  Minnesota  Valley I  used 

to  sit  there  on  the  cliffs  above  Mankato  for  hours  at  a  time, 


174  MAIN    STREET 

my  chin  in  my  hand,  looking  way  down  the  valley,  wanting  to 
write  poems.  The  shiny  tilted  roofs  below  me,  and  the  river, 
and  beyond  it  the  level  fields  in  the  mist,  and  the  rim  of 

palisades  across It  held  my  thoughts  in.  I  lived,  in  the 

valley.  But  the  prairie — all  my  thoughts  go  flying  off  into  the 
big  space.  Do  you  think  it  might  be  that?  " 

"  Um,  well,  maybe,  but Carrie,  you  always  talk  so 

much  about  getting  all  you  can  out  of  life,  and  not  letting 
the  years  slip  by,  and  here  you  deliberately  go  and  deprive 
yourself  of  a  lot  of  real  good  home  pleasure  by  not  enjoying 
people  unless  they  wear  frock  coats  and  trot  out " 

("  Morning  clothes.  Oh.  Sorry.  Didn't  mean  t'  interrupt 
you.") 

" to  a  lot  of  tea-parties.  Take  Jack  Elder.  You  think 

Jack  hasn't  got  any  ideas  about  anything  but  manufacturing 
and  the  tariff  on  lumber.  But  do  you  know  that  Jack  is 
nutty  about  music?  He'll  put  a  grand-opera  record  on  the 

phonograph  and  sit  and  listen  to  it  and  close  his  eyes Or 

you  take  Lym  Cass.  Ever  realize  what  a  well-informed  man 
he  is?  " 

"  But  is  he?  Gopher  Prairie  calls  anybody  '  well-informed ' 
who's  been  through  the  State  Capitol  and  heard  about  Glad 
stone." 

"  Now  I'm  telling  you!  Lym  reads  a  lot — solid  stuff — his 
tory.  Or  take  Mart  Mahoney,  the  garageman.  He's  got  a  lot 
of  Perry  prints  of  famous  pictures  in  his  office.  Or  old  Bing- 
ham  Playfair,  that  died  here  'bout  a  year  ago — lived  seven  miles 
out.  He  was  a  captain  in  the  Civil  War,  and  knew  General 
Sherman,  and  they  say  he  was  a  miner  in  Nevada  right  along 
side  of  Mark  Twain.  You'll  find  these  characters  in  all  these 
small  towns,  and  a  pile  of  savvy  in  every  single  one  of  them, 
if  you  just  dig  for  it." 

"  I  know.  And  I  do  love  them.  Especially  people  like 
Champ  Perry.  But  I  can't  be  so  very  enthusiastic  over  the 
smug  cits  like  Jack  Elder." 

"  Then  I'm  a  smug  cit,  too,  whatever  that  is." 

"  No,  you're  a  scientist.  Oh,  I  will  try  and  get  the  music 
out  of  Mr.  Elder.  Only,  why  can't  he  let  it  come  out,  instead 
of  being  ashamed  of  it,  and  always  talking  about  hunting  dogs? 
But  I  will  try.  Is  it  all  right  now?  " 

"  Sure.  But  there's  one  other  thing.  You  might  give  me 
some  attention,  too!  " 


MAIN    STREET  175 

"That's  unjust!     You  have  everything  I  am!  " 

"No,  I  haven't.  You  think  you  respect  me — you  always 
hand  out  some  spiel  about  my  being  so  c  useful.'  But  you 
never  think  of  me  as  having  ambitions,  just  as  much  as  you 
have!  " 

"  Perhaps  not.    I  think  of  you  as  being  perfectly  satisfied." 

"  Well,  I'm  not,  not  by  a  long  shot!  I  don't  want  to  be 
a  plug  general  practitioner  all  my  life,  like  Westlake,  and  die 
in  harness  because  I  can't  get  out  of  it,  and  have  'em  say, 
1  He  was  a  good  fellow,  but  he  couldn't  save  a  cent.7  Not  that 
I  care  a  whoop  what  they  say,  after  I've  kicked  in  and  can't 
hear  'em,  but  I  want  to  put  enough  money  away  so  you  and 
I  can  be  independent  some  day,  and  not  have  to  work  unless 
I  feel  like  it,  and  I  want  to  have  a  good  house — by  golly,  I'll 
have  as  good  a  house  as  anybody  in  this  town! — and  if  we 
want  to  travel  and  see  your  Tormina  or  whatever  it  is,  why 
we  can  do  it,  with  enough  money  in  our  jeans  so  we  won't 
have  to  take  anything  off  anybody,  or  fret  about  our  old  age. 
You  never  worry  about  what  might  happen  if  we  got  sick  and 
didn't  have  a  good  fat  wad  salted  away,  do  you!  " 

"  I  don't  suppose  I  do." 

"  Well  then,  I  have  to  do  it  for  you.  And  if  you  think  for 
one  moment  I  want  to  be  stuck  in  this  burg  all  my  life,  and 
not  have  a  chance  to  travel  and  see  the  different  points  of 
interest  and  all  that,  then  you  simply  don't  get  me.  I  want 
to  have  a  squint  at  the  world,  much's  you  do.  Only,  I'm  prac 
tical  about  it.  First  place,  I'm  going  to  make  the  money — 
I'm  investing  in  good  safe  farmlands.  Do  you  understand 
why  now?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  Will  you  try  and  see  if  you  can't  think  of  me  as  something 
more  than  just  a  dollar-chasing  roughneck?  " 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  I  haven't  been  just!  I  am  difficile.  And 
I  won't  call  on  the  Dillons!  And  if  Dr.  Dillon  is  working 
for  Westlake  and  McGanum,  I  hate  him  I  " 


CHAPTER  XV 


THAT  December  she  was  in  love  with  her  husband. 

She  romanticized  herself  not  as  a  great  reformer  but  as  the 
wife  of  a  country  physician.   The  realities  of  the  doctor's  house- 
;  hold  were  colored  by  her  pride. 

Late  at  night,  a  step  on  the  wooden  porch,  heard  through 
her  confusion  of  sleep;  the  storm-door  opened;  fumbling  over 
the  inner  door-panels;  the  buzz  of  the  electric  bell.  Kennicott 
muttering  "  Gol  darn  it,"  but  patiently  creeping  out  of  bed, 
remembering  to  draw  the  covers  up  to  keep  her  warm,  feeling 
for  slippers  and  bathrobe,  clumping  down-stairs. 

From  below,  half-heard  in  her  drowsiness,  a  colloquy  in  the 
pidgin- German  of  the  farmers  who  have  forgotten  the  Old 
Country  language  without  learning  the  new: 

"  Hello,  Barney,  wass  willst  du?  " 

"  Morgen,  doctor.  Die  Frau  ist  ja  awful  sick.  All  night  she 
been  having  an  awful  pain  in  de  belly." 

"  How  long  she  been  this  way?    Wie  lang,  eh?  " 

"  I  dunno,  maybe  two  days." 

"  Why  didn't  you  come  for  me  yesterday,  instead  of  waking 
me  up  out  of  a  sound  sleep?  Here  it  is  two  o'clock!  So  spat — 
warum,  eh?  " 

"  Nun  aber,  I  know  it,  but  she  got  soch  a  lot  vorse  last  eve 
ning.  I  t'ought  maybe  all  de  time  it  go  avay,  but  it  got  a  lot 
vorse." 

"  Any  fever?  " 

"  Veil  ja,  I  t'ink  she  got  fever." 

"  Which  side  is  the  pain  on?  " 

"  Huh?  " 

"  Das  Schmertz—die  Weh— which  side  is  it  on?    Here?  " 

"  So.    Right  here  it  is." 

"  Any  rigidity  there?  " 

"  Huh?  " 

"  Is  it  rigid — stiff — I  mean,  does  the  belly  feel  hard  to  the 
fingers?  " 

176 


MAIN   STREET  177 

"  I  dunno.    She  ain't  said  yet." 

"  What  she  been  eating?  " 

"  Veil,  I  t'ink  about  vot  ve  alwis  eat,  maybe  corn  beef  and 
cabbage  and  sausage,  und  so  welter.  Doc,  sie  weint  immer,  all 
the  time  she  holler  like  hell.  I  vish  you  come." 

"  Well,  all  right,  but  you  call  me  earlier,  next  time.  Look 
here,  Barney,  you  better  install  a  'phone — telephone  haben. 
Some  of  you  Dutchmen  will  be  dying  one  of  these  days  before 
you  can  fetch  the  doctor." 

The  door  closing.  Barney's  wagon — the  wheels  silent  in  the 
snow,  but  the  wagon-body  rattling.  Kennicott  clicking  the 
receiver-hook  to  rouse  the  night  telephone-operator,  giving  a 
number,  waiting,  cursing  mildly,  waiting  again,  and  at  last 
growling,  "  Hello,  Gus,  this  is  the  doctor.  Say,  uh,  send  me 
up  a  team.  Guess  snow's  too  thick  for  a  machine.  Going 
eight  miles  south.  All  right.  Huh?  The  hell  I  will!  Don't 
you  go  back  to  sleep.  Huh?  Well,  that's  all  right  now,  you 
didn't  wait  so  very  darn  long.  All  right,  Gus;  shoot  her 
along.  By!  " 

His  step  on  the  stairs;  his  quiet  moving  about  the  frigid 
room  wt\ile  he  dressed;  his  abstracted  and  meaningless  cough. 
She  was  supposed  to  be  asleep;  she  was  too  exquisitely  drowsy 
to  break  the  charm  by  speaking.  On  a  slip  of  paper  laid  on 
the  bureau — she  could  hear  the  pencil  grinding  against  the 
marble  slab — he  wrote  his  destination.  He  went  out,  hungry, 
chilly,  unprotesting;  and  she,  before  she  fell  asleep  again,  loved 
him  for  his  sturdiness,  and  saw  the  drama  of  his  riding  by 
night  to  the  frightened  household  on  the  distant  farm ;  pictured 
children  standing  at  a  window,  waiting  for  him.  He  suddenly 
had  in  her  eyes  the  heroism  of  a  wireless  operator  on  a  ship 
in  a  collision;  of  an  explorer,  fever-clawed,  deserted  by  his 
bearers,  but  going  on — jungle — going 

At  six,  when  the  light  faltered  in  as  through  ground  glass 
and  bleakly  identified  the  chairs  as  gray  rectangles,  she  heard 
his  step  on  the  porch;  heard  him  at  the  furnace:  the  rattle 
of  shaking  the  grate,  the  slow  grinding  removal  of  ashes,  the 
shovel  thrust  into  the  coal-bin,  the  abrupt  clatter  of  the  coal 
as  it  flew  into  the  fire-box,  the  fussy  regulation  of  drafts — the 
daily  sounds  of  a  Gopher  Prairie  life,  now  first  appealing  to 
her  as  something  brave  and  enduring,  many-colored  and  free. 
She  visioned  the  fire-box:  flames  turned  to  lemon  and  metallic 
gold  as  the  coal-dust  sifted  over  them;  thin  twisty  flutters  of 


i;8  MAIN   STREET 

purple,  ghost  flames  which  gave  no  light,  slipping  up  between 
the  dark  banked  coals. 

It  was  luxurious  in  bed,  and  the  house  would  be  warm  for 
her  when  she  rose,  she  reflected.  What  a  worthless  cat  she 
was!  What  were  her  aspirations  beside  his  capability? 

She  awoke  again  as  he  dropped  into  bed. 

"  Seems  just  a  few  minutes  ago  that  you  started  out!  " 

"  I've  been  away  four  hours.  I've  operated  a  woman  for 
appendicitis,  in  a  Dutch  kitchen.  Came  awful  close  to  losing 
her,  too,  but  I  pulled  her  through  all  right.  Close  squeak. 
Barney  says  he  shot  ten  rabbits  last  Sunday." 

He  was  instantly  asleep — one  hour  of  rest  before  he  had  to 
be  up  and  ready  for  the  farmers  who  came  in  early.  She 
marveled  that  in  what  was  to  her  but  a  night-blurred  moment, 
he  should  have  been  in  a  distant  place,  have  taken  charge  of  a 
strange  house,  have  slashed  a  woman,  saved  a  life. 

What  wonder  he  detested  the  lazy  Westlake  and  McGanumI 
How  could  the  easy  Guy  Pollock  understand  this  skill  and 
endurance? 

Then  Kennicott  was  grumbling,  "  Seven-fifteen!  Aren't  you 
ever  going  to  get  up  for  breakfast?  "  and  he  was  not  a  hero- 
scientist  but  a  rather  irritable  and  commonplace  man  who 
needed  a  shave.  They  had  coffee,  griddle-cakes,  and  sausages, 
and  talked  about  Mrs.  McGanum's  atrocious  alligator-hide 
belt.  Night  witchery  and  morning  disillusion  were  alike 
forgotten  in  the  march  of  realities  and  days. 


n 

Familiar  to  the  doctor's  wife  was  the  man  with  an  injured 
leg,  driven  in  from  the  country  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  and 
brought  to  the  house.  He  sat  in  a  rocker  in  the  back  of  a 
lumber-wagon,  his  face  pale  from  the  anguish  of  the  jolting. 
His  leg  was  thrust  out  before  him,  resting  on  a  starch-box  and 
covered  with  a  leather-bound  horse-blanket.  His  drab  cou 
rageous  wife  drove  the  wagon,  and  she  helped  Kennicott  sup 
port  him  as  he  hobbled  up  the  steps,  into  the  house. 

"  Fellow  cut  his  leg  with  an  ax — pretty  bad  gash — Halvor 
Nelson,  nine  miles  out,"  Kennicott  observed. 

Carol  fluttered  at  the  back  of  the  room,  childishly  excited 
when  she  was  sent  to  fetch  towels  and  a  basin  of  water. 
Kennicott  lifted  the  farmer  into  a  chair  and  chuckled,  "  There 


MAIN   STREET  179 

we  are,  Halvor!  We'll  have  you  out  fixing  fences  and  drinking 
aquavit  in  a  month."  The  farmwife  sat  on  the  couch,  expres 
sionless,  bulky  in  a  man's  dogskin  coat  and  unplumbed  layers 
of  jackets.  The  flowery  silk  handkerchief  which  she  had  worn 
over  her  head  now  hung  about  her  seamed  neck.  Her  white 
wool  gloves  lay  in  her  lap. 

Kennicott  drew  from  the  injured  leg  the  thick  red  "  German 
sock,"  the  innumerous  other  socks  of  gray  and  white  wool,  then 
the  spiral  bandage.  The  leg  was  of  an  unwholesome  dead 
white,  with  the  black  hairs  feeble  and  thin  and  flattened,  and 
the  scar  a  puckered  line  of  crimson.  Surely,  Carol  shuddered, 
this  was  not  human  flesh,  the  rosy  shining  tissue  of  the  amorous 
poets. 

Kennicott  examined  the  scar,  smiled  at  Halvor  and  his  wife, 
chanted,  "  Fine,  b'  gosh!  Couldn't  be  better!  " 

The  Nelsons  looked  deprecating.  The  farmer  nodded  a  cue 
to  his  wife  and  she  mourned: 

"  Veil,  how  much  ve  going  to  owe  you,  doctor?  " 

"  I  guess  it'll  be Let's  see:  one  drive  out  and  two  calls. 

I  guess  it'll  be  about  eleven  dollars  in  all,  Lena." 

"  I  dunno  ve  can  pay  you  yoost  a  little  w'ile,  doctor." 

Kennicott  lumbered  over  to  her,  patted  her  shoulder,  roared, 
"  Why,  Lord  love  you,  sister,  I  won't  worry  if  I  never  get  it! 
You  pay  me  next  fall,  when  you  get  your  crop.  .  .  . 
Carrie!  'Suppose  you  or  Bea  could  shake  up  a  cup  of  coffee 
and  some  cold  lamb  for  the  Nelsons?  They  got  a  long  cold 
drive  anead." 


in 

He  had  been  gone  since  morning;  her  eyes  ached  with  read 
ing;  Vida  Sherwin  could  not  come  to  tea.  She  wandered 
through  the  house,  empty  as  the  bleary  street  without.  The 
problem  of  "  Will  the  doctor  be  home  in  time  for  supper,  or 
shall  I  sit  down  without  him?  "  was  important  in  the  house 
hold.-  Six  was  the  rigid,  the  canonical  supper-hour,  but  at 
half-past  six  he  had  not  come.  Much  speculation  with  Bea: 
Had  the  obstetrical  case  taken  longer  than  he  had  expected? 
Had  he  been  called  somewhere  else?  Was  the  snow  much 
heavier  out  in  the  country,  so  that  he  should  have  taken  a 
buggy,  or  even  a  cutter,  instead  of  the  car?  Here  in  town  it 
had  melted  a  lot,  but  still 


i8o  MAIN   STREET 

A  honking,  a  shout,  the  motor  engine  raced  before  it  was 
shut  off. 

She  hurried  to  the  window.  The  car  was  a  monster  at  rest 
after  furious  adventures.  The  headlights  blazed  on  the  clots 
of  ice  in  the  road  so  that  the  tiniest  lumps  gave  mountainous 
shadows,  and  the  taillight  cast  a  circle  of  ruby  on  the  snow 
behind.  Kennicott  was  opening  the  door,  crying,  "  Here  we 
are,  old  girl !  Got  stuck  couple  times,  but  we  made  it,  by  golly, 
we  made  it,  and  here  we  be!  Come  on!  Food!  Eatin's!  " 

She  rushed  to  him,  patted  his  fur  coat,  the  long  hairs  smooth 
but  chilly  to  her  fingers.  She  joyously  summoned  Bea,  "  All 
right!  He's  here!  We'll  sit  right  down!  " 

IV 

There  were,  to  inform  the  doctor's  wife  of  his  successes,  no 
clapping  audiences  nor  book-reviews  nor  honorary  degrees. 
But  there  was  a  letter  written  by  a  German  farmer  recently 
moved  from  Minnesota  to  Saskatchewan: 

Dear  sor,  as  you  haf  bin  treading  mee  for  a  fue  Weaks  dis 
Somer  and  seen  wat  is  rong  wit  mee  so  in  Regarding  to  dat  i  wont 
to  tank  you.  the  Doctor  heir  say  wat  shot  bee  rong  wit  mee  and 
day  give  mee  som  Madsin  but  it  diten  halp  mee  like  wat  you  dit. 
Now  day  glaim  dat  i  Woten  Neet  aney  Madsin  ad  all  wat  you 
tink? 

Well  i  haven  ben  tacking  aney  ting  for  about  one  &^2  Mont  but 
i  dont  get  better  so  i  like  to  heir  Wat  you  tink  about  it  i  feel  like 
dis  Disconfebil  feeling  around  the  Stomac  after  eating  and  dat 
Pain  around  Heard  and  down  the  arm  and  about  3  to  3l/2  Hour 
after  Eating  ;  *eel  weeak  like  and  dissy  and  a  dull  Hadig.  Now 
you  gust  lett  mee  know  Wat  you  tink  about  mee,  i  do  Wat  you  say. 


She  encountered  Guy  Pollock  at  the  drug  store.  He  looked 
at  her  as  though  he  had  a  right  to;  he  spoke  softly.  "I 
haven't  see  you,  the  last  few  days." 

"  No.  I've  been  out  in  the  country  with  Will  several  times. 

He's  so Do  you  know  that  people  like  you  and  me  can 

never  understand  people  like  him?  We're  a  pair  of  hyper 
critical  loafers,  you  and  I,  while  he  quietly  goes  and  does 
things." 

She  nodded  and  smiled  and  was  very  busy  about  purchasing 
boric  acid.  He  stared  after  her,  and  slipped  away. 


MAIN   STREET  181 

When  she  found  that  he  was  gone  she  was  slightly  dis 
concerted. 


VI 

She  could — at  times — agree  with  Kennicott  that  the  shaving- 
and-corsets  familiarity  of  married  life  was  not  dreary  vulgarity 
but  a  wholesome  frankness;  that  artificial  reticences  might 
merely  be  irritating.  She  was  not  much  disturbed  when  for 
hours  he  sat  about  the  living-room  in  his  honest  socks.  But 
she  would  not  listen  to  his  theory  that  "  all  this  romance  stuff 
is  simply  moonshine — elegant  when  you're  courting,  but  no 
use  busting  yourself  keeping  it  up  all  your  life." 

She  thought  of  surprises,  games,  to  vary  the  days.  She 
knitted  an  astounding  purple  scarf,  which  she  hid  under  his 
supper  plate.  (When  he  discovered  it  he  looked  embarrassed, 
and  gasped,  "  Is  today  an  anniversary  or  something?  Gosh, 
I'd  forgotten  it!  ") 

Once  she  filled  a  thermos  bottle  with  hot  coffee,  a  corn-nakes 
box  with  cookies  just  baked  by  Bea,  and  bustled  to  his  office 
at  three  in  the  afternoon.  She  hid  her  bundles  in  the  hall  and 
peeped  in. 

The  office  was  shabby.  Kennicott  had  inherited  it  from  a 
medical  predecessor,  and  changed  it  only  by  adding  a  white 
enameled  operating-table,  a  sterilizer,  a  Roentgen-ray  ap 
paratus,  and  a  small  portable  typewriter.  It  was  a  suite  of 
two  rooms:  a  waiting-room  with  straight  chairs,  shaky  pine 
table,  and  those  coverless  and  unknown  magazines  which  are 
found  only  in  the  offices  of  dentists  and  doctors.  The  room 
beyond,  looking  on  Main  Street,  was  business-office,  consulting- 
room,  operating-room,  and,  in  an  alcove,  bacteriological  and 
chemical  laboratory.  The  wooden  floors  of  both  rooms  were 
bare;  the  furniture  was  brown  and  scaly. 

Waiting  for  the  doctor  were  two  women,  as  still  as  though 
they  were  paralyzed,  and  a  man  in  a  railroad  brakeman's 
uniform,  holding  his  bandaged  right  hand  with  his  tanned  left. 
They  stared  at  Carol.  She  sat  modestly  in  a  stiff  chair,  feeling 
frivolous  and  out  of  place. 

Kennicott  appeared  at  the  inner  door,  ushering  out 
a  bleached  man  with  a  trickle  of  wan  beard,  and  consoling  him, 
"All  right,  Dad.  Be  careful  about  the  sugar,  and  mind  the 
diet  I  gave  you.  Get  the  prescription  filled,  and  come  in  and 


182  MAIN   STREET 

see  me  next  week.    Say,  uh,  better,  uh,  better  not  drink  too 
much  beer.    All  right,  Dad." 

His  voice  was  artificially  hearty.  He  looked  absently  at 
Carol.  He  was  a  medical  machine  now,  not  a  domestic  machine. 
«  What  is  it,  Carrie?  "  he  droned. 

"  No  hurry.    Just  wanted  to  say  hello." 

"Well " 

Self-pity  because  he  did  not  divine  that  this  was  a  surprise 
party  rendered  her  sad  and  interesting  to  herself,  and  she  had 
the  pleasure  of  the  martyrs  in  saying  bravely  to  him,  "It's 
nothing  special.  If  you're  busy  long  I'll  trot  home." 

While  she  waited  she  ceased  to  pity  and  began  to  mock  her 
self.  For  the  first  time  she  observed  the  waiting-room.  Oh 
yes,  the  doctor's  family  had  to  have  obi  panels  and  a  wide 
couch  and  an  electric  percolator,  but  any  hole  was  good  enough 
for  sick  tired  common  people  who  were  nothing  but  the  one 
means  and  excuse  for  the  doctor's  existing!  No.  She  couldn't 
blame  Kennicott.  He  was  satisfied  by  the  shabby  chairs.  He 
put  up  with  them  as  his  patients  did.  It  was  her  neglected 
province — she  who  had  been  going  about  talking  of  rebuilding 
the  whole  town! 

When  the  patients  were  gone  she  brought  in  her  bundles. 

"  What's  those?  "  wondered  Kennicott. 

"  Turn  your  back!     Look  out  of  the  window!  " 

He  obeyed — not  very  much  bored.  When  she  cried  "  Now!  " 
a  feast  of  cookies  and  small  hard  candies  and  hot  coffee  was 
spread  on  the  roll-top  desk  in  the  inner  room. 

His  broad  face  lightened.  "  That's  a  new  one  on  me!  Never 
was  more  surprised  in  my  life!  And,  by  golly,  I  believe  I  am 
hungry.  Say,  this  is  fine." 

When  the  first  exhilaration  of  the  surprise  had  declined 
she  demanded,  "Will!  I'm  going  to  refurnish  your  waiting- 
room!  " 

"  What's  the  matter  with  it?    It's  all  right." 

"It  is  not!  It's  hideous.  We  can  afford  to  give  your 
patients  a  better  place.  And  it  would  be  good  business."  She 
felt  tremendously  politic. 

"  Rats!     I  don't  worry  about  the  business.    You  look  here 

now:  As  I  told  you Just  because  I  like  to  tuck  a  few 

dollars  away,  I'll  be  switched  if  I'll  stand  for  your  thinking 
I'm  nothing  but  a  dollar-chasing " 

"  Stop  it!    Quick!    I'm  not  hurting  your  feelings!    I'm  not 


MAIN   STREET  183 

criticizing!  I'm  the  adoring  least  one  of  thy  harem.  I  just 
mean " 

Two  days  later,  with  pictures,  wicker  chairs,  a  rug,  she  had 
made  the  waiting-room  habitable;  and  Kennicott  admitted, 
"  Does  look  a  lot  better.  Never  thought  much  about  it.  Guess 
I  need  being  bullied." 

She  was  convinced  that  she  was  gloriously  content  in  her 
career  as  doctor's-wife. 


vn 

She  tried  to  free  herself  from  the  speculation  and  disillusion 
ment  which  had  been  twitching  at  her ;  sought  to  dismiss  all  the 
opinionation  of  an  insurgent  era.  She  wanted  to  shine  upon 
the  veal-faced  bristly-bearded  Lyman  Cass  as  much  as  upon 
Miles  Bjornstam  or  Guy  Pollock.  She  gave  a  reception  for  the 
Thanatopsis  Club.  But  her  real  acquiring  of  merit  was  in  call 
ing  upon  that  Mrs.  Bogart  whose  gossipy  good  opinion  was  so 

"liable  to  a  doctor. 

Though  the  Bogart  house  was  next  door  she  had  entered 
it  but  three  times.  Now  she  put  on  her  new  moleskin  cap, 
which  made  her  face  small  and  innocent,  she  rubbed  off  the 
traces  of  a  lip-stick — and  fled  across  the  alley  before  her  ad 
mirable  resolution  should  sneak  away. 

The  age  of  houses,  like  the  age  of  men,  has  small  relation 
to  their  years.  The  dull-green  cottage  of  the  good  Widow 
Bogart  was  twenty  years  old,  but  it  had  the  antiquity  of  Cheops, 
and  the  smell  of  mummy-dust.  Its  neatness  rebuked  the 
street.  The  two  stones  by  the  path  were  painted  yellow;  the 
outhouse  was  so  ovennodestly  masked  with  vines  and  lattice 
that  it  was  not  concealed  at  all;  the  last  iron  dog  remaining 
in  Gopher  Prairie  stood  among  whitewashed  conch-shells  upon 
the  lawn.  The  hallway  was  dismayingly  scrubbed;  the  kitchen 
was  an  exercise  in  mathematics,  with  problems  worked  out  in 
equidistant  chairs. 

The  parlor  was  kept  for  visitors.  Carol  suggested,  "Let's 
sit  in  the  kitchen.  Please  don't  trouble  to  light  the  parlor 
stove." 

"  No  trouble  at  all!  My  gracious,  and  you  coming  so  seldom 
and  all,  and  the  kitchen  is  a  perfect  sight,  I  try  to  keep  it 
clean,  but  Cy  will  track  mud  all  over  it,  I've  spoken  to 
him  about  it  a  hundred  times  if  I've  spoken  once,  no,  you 


184  MAIN   STREET 

sit  right  there,  dearie,  and  I'll  make  a  fire,  no  trouble  at  all, 
practically  no  trouble  at  all." 

Mrs.  Bogart  groaned,  rubbed  her  joints,  and  repeatedly 
dusted  her  hands  while  she  made  the  fire,  and  when  Carol  tried 
to  help  she  lamented,  "Oh,  it  doesn't  matter;  guess  I  ain't 
good  for  much  but  toil  and  workin'  anyway;  seems  as  though 
that's  what  a  lot  of  folks  think." 

The  parlor  was  distinguished  by  an  expanse  of  rag  carpet 
from  which,  as  they  entered,  Mrs.  Bogart  hastily  picked  one 
sad  dead  fly.  In  the  center  of  the  carpet  was  a  rug  depicting 
a  red  Newfoundland  dog,  reclining  in  a  green  and  yellow  daisy 
field  and  labeled  "  Our  Friend."  The  parlor  organ,  tall  and 
thin,  was  adorned  with  a  mirror  partly  circular,  partly  square, 
and  partly  diamond-shaped,  and  with  brackets  holding  a  pot 
of  geraniums,  a  mouth-organ,  and  a  copy  of  "The  Oldtime 
Hymnal."  On  the  center  table  was  a  Sears-Roebuck  mail-order 
catalogue,  a  silver  frame  with  photographs  of  the  'BagtJ** 
Church  and  of  an  elderly  clergyman,  and  an  aluminum  tray 
containing  a  rattlesnake's  rattle  and  a  broken  spectacle-lens. 

Mrs.  Bogart  spoke  of  the  eloquence  of  the  Reverend  Mr. 
Zitterel,  the  coldness  of  cold  days,  the  price  of  poplar  wood, 
Dave  Dyer's  new  hair-cut,  and  Cy  Bogart's  essential  piety. 
"  As  I  said  to  his  Sunday  School  teacher,  Cy  may  be  a  little 
wild,  but  that's  because  he's  got  so  much  better  brains  than  a 
lot  of  these  boys,  and  this  farmer  that  claims  he  caught  Cy 
stealing  'beggies,  is  a  liar,  and  I  ought  to  have  the  law  on 
him." 

Mrs.  Bogart  went  thoroughly  into  the  rumor  that  the  girl 
waiter  at  Billy's  Lunch  was  not  all  she  might  be — or,  rather, 
was  quite  all  she  might  be. 

"  My  lands,  what  can  you  expect  when  everybody  knows 
what  her  mother  was?  And  if  these  traveling  salesmen  would 
let  her  alone  she  would  be  all  right,  though  I  certainly  don't 
believe  she  ought  to  be  allowed  to  think  she  can  pull  the  wool 
over  our  eyes.  The  sooner  she's  sent  to  the  school  for  incorrig 
ible  girls  down  at  Sauk  Centre,  the  better  for  all  and 

Won't  you  just  have  a  cup  of  coffee,  Carol  dearie,  I'm  sure 
you  won't  mind  old  Aunty  Bogart  calling  you  by  your  first 
name  when  you  think  how  long  I've  known  Will,  and  I  was 
such  a  friend  of  his  dear  lovely  mother  when  she  lived  here 

and — was  that  fur  cap  expensive?  But Don't  you  think 

it's  awful,  the  way  folks  talk  in  this  town?  " 


X 

MAIN   STREET  185 

Mrs.  Bogart  hitched  her  chair  nearer.    Her  large  face,  with 
its  disturbing  collection  of  moles  and  lone  black  hairs,  wrinkled 
cunningly.    She  showed  her  decayed  teeth  in  a  reproving  smile,  "\ 
and  in  the  confidential  voice  of  one  who  scents  stale  bedroom  J 
scandal  she  breathed: 

"  I  just  don't  see  how  folks  can  talk  and  act  like  they  do. 
You  don't  know  the  things  that  go  on  under  cover.  This 
town — why  it's  only  the  religious  training  I've  given  Cy  that's 

kept  him  so  innocent  of — things.     Just  the  other  day 

I  never  pay  no  attention  to  stories,  but  I  heard  it  mighty  good 
and  straight  that  Harry  Haydock  is  carrying  on  with  a  girl 
that  clerks  in  a  store  down  in  Minneapolis,  and  poor  Juanita 
not  knowing  anything  about  it — though  maybe  it's  the  judg 
ment  of  God,  because  before  she  married  Harry  she  acted  up 

with  more  than  one  boy Well,  I  don't  like  to  say  it,  and 

maybe  I  ain't  up-to-date,  like  Cy  says,  but  I  always  believed 
a  lady  shouldn't  even  give  names  to  all  sorts  of  dreadful  things, 
but  just  the  same  I  know  there  was  at  least  one  case  where 
Juanita  and  a  boy — well,  they  were  just  dreadful.  And — 

and Then  there's  that  Ole  Jenson  the  grocer,  that  thinks 

he's  so  plaguey  smart,  and  I  know  he  made  up  to  a  farmer's 

wife  and And  this  awful  man  Bjornstam  that  does  chores, 

and  Nat  Hicks  and " 

There  was,  it  seemed,  no  person  in  town  who  was  not  living  a 
life  of  shame  except  Mrs.  Bogart,  and  naturally  she  resented 
it. 

She  knew.  She  had  always  happened  to  be  there.  Once, 
she  whispered,  she  was  going  by  when  an  indiscreet  window- 
shade  had  been  left  up  a  couple  of  inches.  Once  she  had 
noticed  a  man  and  woman  holding  hands,  and  right  at  a 
Methodist  sociable! 

"  Another  thing Heaven  knows  I  never  want  to  start 

trouble,  but  I  can't  help  what  I  see  from  my  back  steps, 
and  I  notice  your  hired  girl  Bea  carrying  on  with  the  grocery 
boys  and  all " 

"  Mrs.  Bogart!     I'd  trust  Bea  as  I  would  myself!  " 

"Oh,  dearie,  you  don't  understand  me!  I'm  sure  she's  a 
good  girl.  I  mean  she's  green,  and  I  hope  that  none  of  these 
horrid  young  men  that  there  are  around  town  will  get  her  into 
trouble!  It's  their  parents'  fault,  letting  them  run  wild  and 
hear  evil  things.  If  I  had  my  way  there  wouldn't  be  none  of 
them,  not  boys  nor  girls  neither,  allowed  to  know  anything 


186  MAIN   STREET 

about — about  things  till  they  was  married.  It's  terrible  the 
bald  way  that  some  folks  talk.  It  just  shows  and  gives  away 
what  awful  thoughts  they  got  inside  them,  and  there's  nothing 
can  cure  them  except  coming  right  to  God  and  kneeling  down 
like  I  do  at  prayer-meeting  every  Wednesday  evening,  and 
saying,  '  0  God,  I  would  be  a  miserable  sinner  except  for  thy 
grace/ 

"  I'd  make  every  last  one  of  these  brats  go  to  Sunday  School 
and  learn  to  think  about  nice  things  'stead  of  about  cigarettes 
and  goings-on — and  these  dances  they  have  at  the  lodges  are 
the  worst  thing  that  ever  happened  to  this  town,  lot  of  young 

men  squeezing  girls  and  finding  out Oh,  it's  dreadful. 

I've  told  the  mayor  he  ought  to  put  a  stop  to  them  and 

There  was  one  boy  in  this  town,  I  don't  want  to  be  suspicious 
or  uncharitable  but " 

It  was  half  an  hour  before  Carol  escaped. 

She  stopped  on  her  own  porch  and  thought  viciously: 

"  If  that  woman  is  on  the  side  of  the  angels,  then  I  have 
no  choice;  I  must  be  on  the  side  of  the  devil.  But — isn't  she 
like  me?  She  too  wants  to  *  reform  the  town '  !  She  too 
criticizes  everybody!  She  too  thinks  the  men  are  vulgar  and 
limited!  Am  I  like  her?  This  is  ghastly!  " 

That  evening  she  did  not  merely  consent  to  play  cribbage 
with  Kennicott;  she  urged  him  to  play;  and  she  worked  up 
a  hectic  interest  in  land-deals  and  Sam  Clark. 


VIII 

In  courtship  days  Kennicott  had  shown  her  a  photograph  of 
Nels  Erdstrom's  baby  and  log  cabin,  but  she  had  never  seen 
the  Erdstroms.  They  had  become  merely  "patients  of  the 
doctor."  Kennicott  telephoned  her  on  a  mid-December  after 
noon,  "Want  to  throw  your  coat  on  and  drive  out  to  Erd 
strom's  with  me?  Fairly  warm.  Nels  got  the  jaundice." 

"  Oh  yes!  "  She  hastened  to  put  on  woolen  stockings,  high 
boots,  sweater,  muffler,  cap,  mittens. 

The  snow  was  too  thick  and  the  ruts  frozen  too  hard  for 
the  motor.  They  drove  out  in  a  clumsy  high  carriage.  Tucked 
over  them  was  a  blue  woolen  cover,  prickly  to  her  wrists,  and 
outside  of  it  a  buffalo  robe,  humble  and  moth-eaten  now,  used 
ever  since  the  bison  herds  had  streaked  the  prairie  a  few  miles 
to  the  west. 


MAIN    STREET  187 

The  scattered  houses  between  which  they  passed  in  town 
were  small  and  desolate  in  contrast  to  the  expanse  of  huge 
snowy  yards  and  wide  street.  They  crossed  the  railroad  tracks, 
and  instantly  were  in  the  farm  country.  The  big  piebald 
horses  snorted  clouds  of  steam,  and  started  to  trot.  The 
carriage  squeaked  in  rhythm.  Kennicott  drove  with  clucks 
of  "  There  boy,  take  it  easy!  "  He  was  thinking.  He  paid  no 
attention  to  Carol.  Yet  it  was  he  who  commented,  "  Pretty 
nice,  over  there,"  as  they  approached  an  oak-grove  where 
shifty  winter  sunlight  quivered  in  the  hollow  between  two 
snow-drifts. 

They  drove  from  the  natural  prairie  to  a  cleared  district 
which  twenty  years  ago  had  been  forest.  The  country  seemed 
to  stretch  unchanging  to  the  North  Pole:  low  hill,  brush- 
scraggly  bottom,  reedy  creek,  muskrat  mound,  fields  with 
frozen  brown  clods  thrust  up  through  the  snow. 

Her  ears  and  nose  were  pinched;  her  breath  frosted  her 
collar;  her  fingers  ached. 

"  Getting  colder,"  she  said. 

"  Yup." 

That  was  all  their  conversation  for  three  miles.  Yet  she 
was  happy. 

They  reached  Nels  Erdstrom's  at  four,  and  with  a  throb 
she  recognized  the  courageous  venture  which  had  lured  her 
to  Gopher  Prairie:  the  cleared  fields,  furrows  among  stumps, 
a  log  cabin  chinked  with  mud  and  roofed  with  dry  hay.  But 
Nels  had  prospered.  He  used  the  log  cabin  as  a  barn;  and 
a  new  house  reared  up,  a  proud,  unwise,  Gopher  Prairie  house, 
the  more  naked  and  ungraceful  in  its  glossy  white  paint  and 
pink  trimmings.  Every  tree  had  been  cut  down.  The  house 
was  so  unsheltered,  so  battered  by  the  wind,  so  bleakly  thrust 
out  into  the  harsh  clearing,  that  Carol  shivered.  But  they 
were  welcomed  warmly  enough  in  the  kitchen,  with  its  crisp 
new  plaster,  its  black  and  nickel  range,  its  cream  separator 
in  a  corner. 

Mrs.  Erdstrom  begged  her  to  sit  in  the  parlor,  where  there 
was  a  phonograph  and  an  oak  and  leather  davenport,  the 
prairie  farmer's  proofs  of  social  progress,  but  she  dropped  down 
by  the  kitchen  stove  and  insisted,  "  Please  don't  mind  me." 
When  Mrs.  Erdstrom  had  followed  the  doctor  out  of  the  room 
Carol  glanced  in  a  friendly  way  at  the  grained  pine  cupboard, 
the  framed  Lutheran  Konfirmations  Attest,  the  traces  of  fried 


i88  MAIN   STREET 

eggs  and  sausages  on  the  dining  table  against  the  wall,  and  a 
jewel  among  calendars,  presenting   not  only   a   lithographic 
young  woman  with  cherry  lips,  and  a  Swedish  advertisement 
of  Axel  Egge's  grocery,  but  also  a  thermometer  and  a  match 
holder. 

She  saw  that  a  boy  of  four  or  five  was  staring  at  her  from 
the  hall;  a  boy  in  gingham  shirt  and  faded  corduroy  trousers, 
but  large-eyed,  firm-mouthed,  wide-browed.  He  vanished,  then 
peeped  in  again,  biting  his  knuckles,  turning  his  shoulder  toward 
her  in  shyness. 

^'Didn't  she  remember — what  was  it? — Kennicott  sitting  be 
side  her  at  Fort  Snelling,  urging,  "  See  how  scared  that  baby 
is.  Needs  some  woman  like  you." 

Magic  had  fluttered  about  her  then — magic  of  sunset  and 
cool  air  and  the  curiosity  of  lovers.  She  held  out  her  hands  as 
much  to  that  sanctity  as  to  the  boy. 

He  edged  into  the  room,  doubtfully  sucking  his  thumb. 

"  Hello,"  she  said.    "  What's  your  name?  " 

"  Hee,  hee,  hee!  " 

"  You're  quite  right.    I  agree  with  you.    Silly  people  like 
me  always  ask  children  their  names." 
'  "  Hee,  hee,  hee!  " 

"  Come  here  and  I'll  tell  you  the  story  of — well,  I  don't 
know  what  it  will  be  about,  but  it  will  have  a  slim  heroine 
and  a  Prince  Charming." 

He  stood  stoically  while  she  spun  nonsense.  His  giggling 
ceased.  She  was  winning  him.  Then  the  telephone  bell — two 
long  rings,  one  short. 

Mrs.  Erdstrom  galloped  into  the  room,  shrieked  into  the 
transmitter,  "  Veil?  Yes,  yes,  dis  is  Erdstrom 's  place!  Heh? 
Oh,  you  vant  de  doctor?  " 

Kennicott  appeared,  growled  into  the  telephone: 

"Well,  what  do  you  want?  Oh,  hello  Dave;  what  do  you 
want?  Which  Morgenroth's?  Adolph's?  All  right.  Am 
putation?  Yuh,  I  see.  Say,  Dave,  get  Gus  to  harness  up  and 
take  my  surgical  kit  down  there — and  have  him  take  some 
chloroform.  I'll  go  straight  down  from  here.  May  not  get 
home  tonight.  You  can  get  me  at  Adolph's.  Huh?  No,  Carrie 
can  give  the  anesthetic,  I  guess.  G'-by.  Huh?  No;  tell  me 
about  that  tomorrow — too  damn  many  people  always  listening 
in  on  this  farmers'  line."  ^^ 

He  turned  to  Carol.    "  Molph  Morgenroth,  farmer  ten  miles 


MAIN   STREET  189 

southwest  of  town,  got  his  arm  crushed — fixing  his  cow-shed 
and  a  post  caved  in  on  him — smashed  him  up  pretty  bad — 
may  have  to  amputate,  Dave  Dyer  says.  Afraid  we'll  have 
to  go  right  from  here.  Darn  sorry  to  drag  you  clear  down 
there  with  me " 

"  Please  do.    Don't  mind  me  a  bit." 

"  Think  you  could  give  the  anesthetic?  Usually  have  my 
driver  do  it." 

"  If  you'll  tell  me  how."  x 

"  All  right.  Say,  did  you  hear  me  putting  one  over  on  these  \ 
goats  that  are  always  rubbering  in  on  party-wires?  I  hopl 
they  heard  me!  Well.  .  .  .  Now,  Bessie,  don't  you  worry 
about  Nels.  He's  getting  along  all  right.  Tomorrow  you  or 
one  of  the  neighbors  drive  in  and  get  this  prescription  filled 
at  Dyer's.  Give  him  a  teaspoonful  every  four  hours.  Good- 
by.  Hel-lo!  Here's  the  little  fellow!  My  Lord,  Bessie,  it 
ain't  possible  this  is  the  fellow  that  used  to  be  so  sickly?  Why, 
say,  he's  a  great  big  strapping  Svenska  now — going  to  be  bigger 
'n  his  daddy!  " 

Kennicott's  bluffness  made  the  child  squirm  with  a  delight 
which  Carol  could  not  evoke.  It  was  a  humble  wife  who 
followed  the  busy  doctor  out  to  the  carriage,  and  her  ambition 
was  not  to  play  Rachmaninoff  better,  nor  to  build  town  halls, 
but  to  chuckle  at  babies. 

The  sunset  was  merely  a  flush  of  rose  on  a  dome  of  silver, 
with  oak  twigs  and  thin  poplar  branches  against  it,  but  a  silo 
on  the  horizon  changed  from  a  red  tank  to  a  tower  of  violet 
misted  over  with  gray.  The  purple  road  vanished,  and  without 
lights,  in  the  darkness  of  a  world  destroyed,  they  swayed  on — 
toward  nothing. 

It  was  a  bumpy  cold  way  to  the  Morgenroth  farm,  and 
she  was  asleep  when  they  arrived. 

Here  was  no  glaring  new  house  with  a  proud  phonograph, 
but  a  low  whitewashed  kitchen  smelling  of  cream  and  cabbage. 
Adolph  Morgenroth  was  lying  on  a  couch  in  the  rarely  used 
dining-room.  His  heavy  work-scarred  wife  was  shaking  her 
hands  in  anxiety. 

Carol  felt  that  Kennicott  would  do  something  magnificent 
and  startling.  But  he  was  casual.  He  greeted  the  man,  "  Well, 
well,  Adolph,  have  to  fix  you  up,  eh?  "  Quietly,  to  the  wife, 
"  Hat  die  drug  store  my  schwartze  bag  hier  geschickt?  So — 
schon.  Wie  viel  Uhr  ist  's?  Sieben?  Nun,  lassen  uns  ein 


igo  MAIN   STREET 

wenig  supper  zuerst  hob  en.  Got  any  of  that  good  beer  left — 
giebt  's  noch  Bier?  " 

He  had  supped  in  four  minutes.  His  coat  off,  his  sleeves 
rolled  up,  he  was  scrubbing  his  hands  in  a  tin  basin  in  the 
sink,  using  the  bar  of  yellow  kitchen  soap. 

Carol  had  not  dared  to  look  into  the  farther  room  while 
she  labored  over  the  supper  of  beer,  rye  bread,  moist  corn- 
beef  and  cabbage,  set  on  the  kitchen  table.  The  man  in  there 
was  groaning.  In  her  one  glance  she  had  seen  that  his  blue 
flannel  shirt  was  open  at  a  corded  tobacco-brown  neck,  the 
hollows  of  which  were  sprinkled  with  thin  black  and  gray  hairs. 
He  was  covered  with  a  sheet,  like  a  corpse,  and  outside  the 
sheet  was  his  right  arm,  wrapped  in  towels  stained  with  blood. 

But  Kennicott  strode  into  the  other  room  gaily,  and  she 
followed  him.  With  surprising  delicacy  in  his  large  fingers 
he  unwrapped  the  towels  and  revealed  an  arm  which,  below 
the  elbow,  was  a  mass  of  blood  and  raw  flesh.  The  man  bel 
lowed.  The  room  grew  thick  about  her ;  she  was  very  seasick ; 
she  fled  to  a  chair  in  the  kitchen.  Through  the  haze  of  nausea 
she  heard  Kennicott  grumbling,  "  Afraid  it  will  have  to  come 
off,  Adolph.  What  did  you  do?  Fall  on  a  reaper  blade? 
We'll  fix  it  right  up.  Carrie!  Carol!  " 

She  couldn't — she  couldn't  get  up.  Then  she  was  up,  her 
knees  like  water,  her  stomach  revolving  a  thousand  times  a 
second,  her  eyes  filmed,  her  ears  full  of  roaring.  She  couldn't 
reach  the  dining-room.  She  was  going  to  faint.  Then  she 
was  in  the  dining-room,  leaning  against  the  wall,  trying  to 
smile,  flushing  hot  and  cold  along  her  chest  and  sides,  while 
Kennicott  mumbled,  "  Say,  help  Mrs.  Morgenroth  and  me 
carry  him  in  on  the  kitchen  table.  No,  first  go  out  and  shove 
those  two  tables  together,  and  put  a  blanket  on  them  and  a 
clean  sheet." 

It  was  salvation  to  push  the  heavy  tables,  to  scrub  them, 
to  be  exact  in  placing  the  sheet.  Her  head  cleared;  she  was 
able  to  look  calmly  in  at  her  husband  and  the  farmwife  while 
they  undressed  the  wailing  man,  got  him  into  a  clean  nightgown, 
and  washed  his  arm.  Kennicott  came  to  lay  out  his  instru 
ments.  She  realized  that,  with  no  hospital  facilities,  yet  with 
no  worry  about  it,  her  husband — her  husband — was  going  to 
perform  a  surgical  operation,  that  miraculous  boldness  of  which 
one  read  in  stories  about  famous  surgeons. 

She  helped  them  to  move  Adolph  into  the  kitchen.    The 


MAIN   STREET  191 

man  was  in  such  a  funk  that  he  would  not  use  his  legs.  He 
was  heavy,  and  smelled  of  sweat  and  the  stable.  But  she  put 
her  arm  about  his  waist,  her  sleek  head  by  his  chest;  she 
tugged  at  him;  she  clicked  her  tongue  in  imitation  of  Kenni- 
cott's  cheerful  noises. 

When  Adolph  was  on  the  table  Kennicott  laid  a  hemispheric 
steel  and  cotton  frame  on  his  face;  suggested  to  Carol,  "  Now 
you  sit  here  at  his  head  and  keep  the  ether  dripping — about 
this  fast,  see?  I'll  watch  his  breathing.  Look  who's  here! 
Real  anesthetist!  Ochsner  hasn't  got  a  better  one!  Class, 
eh?  ...  Now,  now,  Adolph,  take  it  easy.  This  won't  hurt 
you  a  bit.  Put  you  all  nice  and  asleep  and  it  won't  hurt  a 
bit.  Sckweig'  malt  Bald  schlajt  man  grat  wie  ein  Kind.  So! 
So!  Bald  geht's  besser!  " 

As  she  let  the  ether  drip,  nervously  trying  to  keep  the 
rhythm  that  Kennicott  had  indicated,  Carol  stared  at  her  hus 
band  with  the  abandon  of  hero-worship. 

He  shook  his  head.  "  Bad  light— bad  light.  Here,  Mrs. 
Morgenroth,  you  stand  right  here  and  hold  this  lamp.  Hier, 
und  dieses — dieses  lamp  halt  en — sot" 

By  that  streaky  glimmer  he  worked,  swiftly,  at  ease.  The 
room  was  still.  Carol  tried  to  look  at  him,  yet  not  look  at  the 
seeping  blood,  the  crimson  slash,  the  vicious  scalpel.  The 
ether  fumes  were  sweet,  choking.  Her  head  seemed  to  be 
floating  away  from  her  body.  Her  arm  was  feeble. 

It  was  not  the  blood  but  the  grating  of  the  surgical  saw  on 
the  living  bone  that  broke  her,  and  she  knew  that  she  had 
been  fighting  off  nausea,  that  she  was  beaten.  She  was  lost 
in  dizziness.  She  heard  Kennicott's  voice: 

"  Sick?  Trot  outdoors  couple  minutes.  Adolph  will  stay 
under  now." 

She  was  fumbling  at  a  door-knob  which  whirled  in  insulting 
circles;  she  was  on  the  stoop,  gasping,  forcing  air  into  her 
chest,  her  head  clearing.  As  she  returned  she  caught  the  scene 
as  a  whole:  the  cavernous  kitchen,  two  milk-cans  a  leaden 
patch  by  the  wall,  hams  dangling  from  a  beam,  bars  of  light 
at  the  stove  door,  and  in  the  center,  illuminated  by  a  small 
glass  lamp  held  by  a  frightened  stout  woman,  Dr.  Kennicott 
bending  over  a  body  which  was  humped  under  a  sheet — the 
surgeon,  his  bare  arms  daubed  with  blood,  his  hands,  in  pale- 
yellow  rubber  gloves,  loosening  the  tourniquet,  his  face  without 
emotion  save  when  he  threw  up  his  head  and  clucked  at  the 


I92  MAIN    STREET 

farmwife,  "  Hold  that  light  steady  just  a  second  more — noch 
bios  ein  wenig" 

"He  speaks  a  vulgar,  common,  incorrect  German  of  life 
and  death  and  birth  and  the  soil.  I  read  the  French  and 
German  of  sentimental  lovers  and  Christmas  garlands.  And 
I  thought  that  it  was  I  who  had  the  culture!  "  she  worshiped 
as  she  returned  to  her  place. 

After  a  time  he  snapped,  "  That's  enough.  Don't  give  him 
any  more  ether."  He  was  concentrated  on  tying  an  artery. 
His  gruffness  seemed  heroic  to  her. 

As  he  shaped  the  flap  of  flesh  she  murmured,  "  Oh,  you  are 
wonderful!  " 

He  was  surprised.  "  Why,  this  is  a  cinch.  Now  if  it  had 

been  like  last  week Get  me  some  more  water.  Now  last 

week  I  had  a  case  with  an  ooze  in  the  peritoneal  cavity,  and 
by  golly  if  it  wasn't  a  stomach  ulcer  that  I  hadn't  suspected 

and There.  Say,  I  certainly  am  sleepy.  Let's  turn  in 

here.  Too  late  to  drive  home.  And  tastes  to  me  like  a  storm 
coming." 


They  slept  on  a  feather  bed  with  their  fur  coats  over  them; 
in  the  morning  they  broke  ice  in  the  pitcher — the  vast  flowered 
and  gilt  pitcher. 

Kennicott's  storm  had  not  come.  When  they  set  out  it  was 
hazy  and  growing  warmer.  After  a  mile  she  saw  that  he  was 
studying  a  dark  cloud  in  the  north.  He  urged  the  horses  to 
the  run.  But  she  forgot  his  unusual  haste  in  wonder  at  the 
tragic  landscape.  The  pale  snow,  the  prickles  of  old  stubble, 
and  the  clumps  of  ragged  brush  faded  into  a  gray  obscurity. 
Under  the  hillocks  were  cold  shadows.  The  willows  about  a 
farmhouse  were  agitated  by  the  rising  wind,  and  the  patches  of 
bare  wood  where  the  bark  had  peeled  away  were  white  as  the 
flesh  of  a  leper.  The  snowy  slews  were  of  a  harsh  flatness. 
The  whole  land  was  cruel,  and  a  climbing  cloud  of  slate-edged 
blackness  dominated  the  sky. 

"  Guess  we're  about  in  for  a  blizzard,"  speculated  Kennicott. 
"  We  can  make  Ben  McGonegal's,  anyway." 

"  Blizzard?  Really?  Why But  still  we  used  to  think 

they  were  fun  when  I  was  a  girl.  Daddy  had  to  stay  home 
from  court,  and  we'd  stand  at  the  window  and  watch  the 


MAIN   STREET  193 

"  Not  much  fun  on  the  prairie.  Get  lost.  Freeze  to  death. 
Take  no  chances."  He  chirruped  at  the  horses.  They  were 
flying  now,  the  carriage  rocking  on  the  hard  ruts. 

The  whole  air  suddenly  crystallized  into  large  damp  flakes. 
The  horses  and  the  buffalo  robe  were  covered  with  snow;  her 
face  was  wet;  the  thin  butt  of  the  whip  held  a  white  ridge. 
The  air  became  colder.  The  snowflakes  were  harder;  they 
shot  in  level  lines,  clawing  at  her  face. 

She  could  not  see  a  hundred  feet  ahead. 

Kennicott  was  stern.  He  bent  forward,  the  reins  firm  in  his 
coonskin  gauntlets.  She  was  certain  that  he  would  get  through. 
He  always  got  through  things. 

Save  for  his  presence,  the  world  and  all  normal  living  disap 
peared.  They  were  lost  in  the  boiling  snow.  He  leaned  close 
to  bawl,  "  Letting  the  horses  have  their  heads.  They'll  get  us 
home." 

With  a  terrifying  bump  they  were  off  the  road,  slanting  with 
two  wheels  in  the  ditch,  but  instantly  they  were  jerked  back 
as  the  horses  fled  on.  She  gasped.  She  tried  to,  and  did  not, 
feel  brave  as  she  pulled  the  woolen  robe  up  about  her  chin. 

They  were  passing  something  like  a  dark  wall  on  the  right. 
"  I  know  that  barn!  "  he  yelped.  He  pulled  at  the  reins. 
Peeping  from  the  covers  she  saw  his  teeth  pinch  his  lower  lip, 
saw  him  scowl  as  he  slackened  and  sawed  and  jerked  sharply 
again  at  the  racing  horses. 

They  stopped. 

"  Farmhouse  there.  Put  robe  around  you  and  come  on,"  he 
cried. 

It  was  like  diving  into  icy  water  to  climb  out  of  the  carriage, 
but  on  the  ground  she  smiled  at  him,  her  face  little  and  childish 
and  pink  above  the  buffalo  robe  over  her  shoulders.  In  a 
swirl  of  flakes  which  scratched  at  their  eyes  like  a  maniac 
darkness,  he  unbuckled  the  harness.  He  turned  and  plodded 
back,  a  ponderous  furry  figure,  holding  the  horses'  bridles, 
Carol's  hand  dragging  at  his  sleeve. 

They  came  to  the  cloudy  bulk  of  a  barn  whose  outer  wall  was 
directly  upon  the  road.  Feeling  along  it,  he  found  a  gate,  led 
them  into  a  yard,  into  the  barn.  The  interior  was  warm.  It 
stunned  them  with  its  languid  quiet. 

He  carefully  drove  the  horses  into  stalls. 

Her  toes  were  coals  of  pain.    "  Let's  run  for  the  house,"  she 


194  MAIN   STREET 

"  Can't.  Not  yet.  Might  never  find  it.  Might  get  lost  ten 
feet  away  from  it.  Sit  over  in  this  stall,  near  the  horses. 
We'll  rush  for  the  house  when  the  blizzard  lifts." 

"  I'm  so  stiff!     I  can't  walk!  " 

He  carried  her  into  the  stall,  stripped  off  her  overshoes  and 
boots,  stopping  to  blow  on  his  purple  fingers  as  he  fumbled 
at  her  laces.  He  rubbed  her  feet,  and  covered  her  with  the 
buffalo  robe  and  horse-blankets  from  the  pile  on  the  feed-box. 
She  was  drowsy,  hemmed  in  by  the  storm.  She  sighed: 

"  You're  so  strong  and  yet  so  skilful  and  not  afraid  of 
blood  or  storm  or " 

"  Used  to  it.  Only  thing  that's  bothered  me  was  the  chance 
the  ether  fumes  might  explode,  last  night." 

"  I  don't  understand." 

"  Why,  Dave,  the  darn  fool,  sent  me  ether,  instead  of  chloro 
form  like  I  told  him,  and  you  know  ether  fumes  are  mighty 
inflammable,  especially  with  that  lamp  right  by  the  table.  But 
I  had  to  operate,  of  course — wound  chuck-full  of  barnyard 
filth  that  way." 

"  You  knew  all  the  time  that Both  you  and  I  might 

have  been  blown  up?  You  knew  it  while  you  were  operating?  " 

"  Sure.    Didn't  you?    Why,  what's  the  matter?  " 


CHAPTER  XVI 


KENNICOTT  was  heavily  pleased  by  her  Christmas  presents, 
and  he  gave  her  a  diamond  bar-pin.  But  she  could  not  persuade 
herself  that  he  was  much  interested  in  the  rites  of  the  morn 
ing,  in  the  tree  she  had  decorated,  the  three  stockings  she  had 
hung,  the  ribbons  and  gilt  seals  and  hidden  messages.  He 
said  only: 

"  Nice  way  to  fix  things,  all  right.  What  do  you  say  we 
go  down  to  Jack  Elder's  and  have  a  game  of  five  hundred  this 
afternoon?  " 

She  remembered  her  father's  Christmas  fantasies:  the  sacred 
old  rag  doll  at  the  top  of  the  tree,  the  score  of  cheap  presents, 
the  punch  and  carols,  the  roast  chestnuts  by  the  fire,  and  the 
gravity  with  which  the  judge  opened  the  children's  scrawly 
notes  and  took  cognizance  of  demands  for  sled-rides,  for  opin 
ions  upon  the  existence  of  Santa  Claus.  She  remembered  him 
reading  out  a  long  indictment  of  himself  for  being  a  sentimental 
ist,  against  the  peace  and  dignity  of  the  State  of  Minnesota. 
She  remembered  his  thin  legs  twinkling  before  their  sled 

She  muttered  unsteadily,  "  Must  run  up  and  put  on  my  shoes 
— slippers  so  cold."  In  the  not  very  romantic  solitude  of  the 
locked  bathroom  she  sat  on  the  slippery  edge  of  the  tub  and 
wept. 

n 

Kennicott  had  five  hobbies:  medicine,  land-investment,  Carol, 
motoring,  and  hunting.  It  is  not  certain  in  what  order  he 
preferred  them.  Solid  though  his  enthusiasms  were  in  the  mat 
ter  of  medicine — his  admiration  of  this  city  surgeon,  his 
condemnation  of  that  for  tricky  ways  of  persuading  country 
practitioners  to  bring  in  surgical  patients,  his  indignation  about 
fee-splitting,  his  pride  in  a  new  X-ray  apparatus — none  of 
these  beatified  him  as  did  motoring. 

He  nursed  his  two-year-old  Buick  even  in  winter,  when  it 

195 


196  MAIN    STREET 

was  stored  in  the  stable-garage  behind  the  house.  He  filled 
the  grease-cups,  varnished  a  fender,  removed  from  beneath  the 
back  seat  the  debris  of  gloves,  copper  washers,  crumpled  maps, 
dust,  and  greasy  rags.  Winter  noons  he  wandered  out  and 
stared  owlishly  at  the  car.  He  became  excited  over  a  fabulous 
"  trip  we  might  take  next  summer."  He  galloped  to  the  sta 
tion,  brought  home  railway  maps,  and  traced  motor-routes  from 
Gopher  Prairie  to  Winnipeg  or  Des  Moines  or  Grand  Marais, 
thinking  aloud  and  expecting  her  to  be  effusive  about  such 
academic  questions  as  "  Now  I  wonder  if  we  could  stop  at 
Baraboo  and  break  the  jump  from  La  Crosse  to  Chicago?  ' 

To  him  motoring  was  a  faith  not  to  be  questioned,  a  high- 
church  cult,  with  electric  sparks  for  candles,  and  piston-rings 
possessing  the  sanctity  of  altar-vessels.  His  liturgy  was  com 
posed  of  intoned  and  metrical  road-comments :  "  They  say 
there's  a  pretty  good  hike  from  Duluth  to  International  Falls." 

Hunting  was  equally  a  devotion,  full  of  metaphysical  con 
cepts  veiled  from  Carol.  All  winter  he  read  sporting-cata 
logues,  and  thought  about  remarkable  past  shots:  "  'Member 
that  time  when  I  got  two  ducks  on  a  long  chance,  just  at 
sunset?  "  At  least  once  a  month  he  drew  his  favorite  repeat 
ing  shotgun,  his  "pump  gun,"  from  its  wrapper  of  greased 
canton  flannel;  he  oiled  the  trigger,  and  spent  silent  ecstatic 
moments  aiming  at  the  ceiling.  Sunday  mornings  Carol  heard 
him  trudging  up  to  the  attic  and  there,  an  hour  later,  she 
found  him  turning  over  boots,  wooden  duck-decoys,  lunch- 
boxes,  or  reflectively  squinting  at  old  shells,  rubbing  their 
brass  caps  with  his  sleeve  and  shaking  his  head  as  he  thought 
about  their  uselessness. 

He  kept  the  loading- tools  he  had  used  as  a  boy:  a  capper 
for  shot-gun  shells,  a  mold  for  lead  bullets.  When  once,  in  a 
housewifely  frenzy  for  getting  rid  of  things,  she  raged,  "  Why 
don't  you  give  these  away?  "  he  solemnly  defended  them, 
"Well,  you  can't  tell;  they  might  come  in  handy  some  day." 

She  flushed.  She  wondered  if  he  was  thinking  of  the  child 
they  would  have  when,  as  he  put  it,  they  were  "sure  they 
could  afford  one." 

Mysteriously  aching,  nebulously  sad,  she  slipped  away,  half- 
convinced  but  only  half-convinced  that  it  was  horrible  and  un 
natural,  this  postponement  of  release  of  mother-affection,  this 
sacrifice  to  her  opinionation  and  to  his  cautious  desire  for 
prosperity. 


MAIN   STREET  197 

"But  it  would  be  worse  if  he  were  like  Sam  Clark — in 
sisted  on  having  children,"  she  considered ;  then,  "  If  Will 
were  the  Prince,  wouldn't  I  demand  his  child?  " 

Kennicott's  land-deals  were  both  financial  advancement  and 
favorite  game.  Driving  through  the  country,  he  noticed  which 
farms  had  good  crops;  he  heard  the  news  about  the  restless 
farmer  who  was  "  thinking  about  selling  out  here  and  pulling 
his  freight  for  Alberta."  He  asked  the  veterinarian  about  the 
value  of  different  breeds  of  stock;  he  inquired  of  Lyman  Cass 
whether  or  not  Einar  Gyseldson  really  had  had  a  yield  of  forty 
bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre.  He  was  always  consulting  Julius 
Flickerbaugh,  who  handled  more  real  estate  than  law,  and  more 
law  than  justice.  He  studied  township  maps,  and  read  notices 
of  auctions. 

Thus  he  was  able  to  buy  a  quarter-section  of  land  for  one 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  an  acre,  and  to  sell  it  in  a  year  or 
two,  after  installing  a  cement  floor  in  the  barn  and  running 
water  in  the  house,  for  one  hundred  and  eighty  or  even  two 
hundred. 

He  spoke  of  these  details  to  Sam  Clark.  .  .  .  rather 
often. 

In  all  his  games,  cars  and  guns  and  land,  he  expected  Carol 
to  take  an  interest.  But  he  did  not  give  her  the  facts  which 
might  have  created  interest.  He  talked  only  of  the  obvious  and 
tedious  aspects;  never  of  his  aspirations  in  finance,  nor  of  the 
mechanical  principles  of  motors. 

This  month  of  romance  she  was  eager  to  understand  his 
hobbies.  She  shivered  in  the  garage  while  he  spent  half  an  hour 
in  deciding  whether  to  put  alcohol  or  patent  non-freezing  liquid 
into  the  radiator,  or  to  drain  out  the  water  entirely.  "  Or  no, 
then  I  wouldn't  want  to  take  her  out  if  it  turned  warm — 
still,  of  course,  I  could  fill  the  radiator  again — wouldn't  take 
so  awful  long — just  take  a  few  pails  of  water — still,  if  it  turned 

cold  on  me  again  before  I  drained  it Course  there's  some 

people  that  put  in  kerosene,  but  they  say  it  rots  the  hose-con 
nections  and Where  did  I  put  that  lug- wrench?  " 

It  was  at  this  point  that  she  gave  up  being  a  motorist  and 
retired  to  the  house. 

In  their  new  intimacy  he  was  more  communicative  about  his 
practise;  he  informed  her,  with  the  invariable  warning  not  to 
tell,  that  Mrs.  Sunderquist  had  another  baby  coming,  that  the 
"  hired  girl  at  Rowland's  was  in  trouble."  But  when  she  asked 


I98  MAIN   STREET 

technical  questions  he  did  not  know  how  to  answer;  when  she 
inquired,  "  Exactly  what  is  the  method  of  taking  out  the  ton 
sils?  "  he  yawned,  "  Tonsilectomy?  Why  you  just If 

there's  pus,  you  operate.    Just  take  ?em  out.    Seen  the  news 
paper?     What  the  devil  did  Bea  do  with  it?  " 
She  did  not  try  again. 


m 

They  had  gone  to  the  "  movies."  The  movies  were  almost 
as  vital  to  Kennicott  and  the  other  solid  citizens  of  Gopher 
Prairie  as  land-speculation  and  guns  and  automobiles. 

The  feature  film  portrayed  a  brave  young  Yankee  who  con 
quered  a  South  American  republic.  He  turned  the  natives  from 
their  barbarous  habits  of  singing  and  laughing  to  the  vigorous 
sanity,  the  Pep  and  Punch  and  Go,  of  the  North;  he  taught 
them  to  work  in  factories,  to  wear  Klassy  Kollege  Klothes,  and 
to  shout,  "  Oh,  you  baby  doll,  watch  me  gather  in  the  mazuma." 
He  changed  nature  itself.  A  mountain  which  had  borne  noth 
ing  but  lilies  and  cedars  and  loafing  clouds  was  by  his  Hustle 
so  inspirited  that  it  broke  out  in  long  wooden  sheds,  and  piles 
of  iron  ore  to  be  converted  into  steamers  to  carry  iron  ore 
to  be  converted  into  steamers  to  carry  iron  ore. 

The  intellectual  tension  induced  by  the  master  film  was  re 
lieved  by  a  livelier,  more  lyric  and  less  philosophical  drama: 
Mack  Schnarken  and  the  Bathing  Suit  Babes  in  a  comedy  of 
manners  entitled  "  Right  on  the  Coco."  Mr.  Schnarken  was  at 
various  high  moments  a  cook,  a  life-guard,  a  burlesque  actor, 
and  a  sculptor.  There  was  a  hotel  hallway  up  which  policemen 
charged,  only  to  be  stunned  by  plaster  busts  hurled  upon  them 
from  the  innumerous  doors.  If  the  plot  lacked  lucidity,  the 
dual  motif  of  legs  and  pie  was  clear  and  sure.  Bathing  and 
modeling  were  equally  sound  occasions  for  legs;  the  wedding- 
scene  was  but  an  approach  to  the  thunderous  climax  when  Mr. 
Schnarken  slipped  a  piece  of  custard  pie  into  the  clergyman's 
rear  pocket. 

The  audience  in  the  Rosebud  Movie  Palace  squealed  and 
wiped  their  eyes;  they  scrambled  under  the  seats  for  over 
shoes,  mittens,  and  mufflers,  while  the  screen  announced  that 
next  week  Mr.  Schnarken  might  be  seen  in  a  new,  riproaring, 
extra-special  superfeature  of  the  Clean  Comedy  Corporation 
entitled,  "  Under  Mollie's  Bed." 


MAIN    STREET  199 

"  I'm  glad,"  said  Carol  to  Kennicott  as  they  stooped  before 
the  northwest  gale  which  was  torturing  the  barren  street,  "  that 
this  is  a  moral  country.  We  don't  allow  any  of  these  beastly 
frank  novels." 

"  Yump.  Vice  Society  and  Postal  Department  won't  stand 
for  them.  The  American  people  don't  like  filth." 

"  Yes.  It's  fine.  I'm  glad  we  have  such  dainty  romances  as 
'Right  on  the  Coco '  instead." 

"  Say  what  in  heck  do  you  think  you're  trying  to  do?  Kid 
me?" 

He  was  silent.  She  awaited  his  anger.  She  meditated  upon 
his  gutter  patois,  the  Boeotian  dialect  characteristic  of  Gopher 
Prairie.  He  laughed  puzzlingly.  When  they  came  into  the 
glow  of  the  house  he  laughed  again.  He  condescended: 

"  I've  got  to  hand  it  to  you.  You're  consistent,  all  right. 
I'd  of  thought  that  after  getting  this  look-in  at  a  lot  of  good 
decent  farmers,  you'd  get  over  this  high-art  stuff,  but  you 
hang  right  on." 

"  Well "  To  herself:  "  He  takes  advantage  of  my  try 
ing  to  be  good." 

"Tell  you,  Carrie:  There's  just  three  classes  of  people: 
folks  that  haven't  got  any  ideas  at  all;  and  cranks  that  kick 
about  everything;  and  Regular  Guys,  the  fellows  with  stick- 
tuitiveness,  that  boost  and  get  the  world's  work  done." 

•l  Then  I'm  probably  a  crank."    She  smiled  negligently. 

"No.  I  won't  admit  it.  You  do  like  to  talk,  but  at  a 
show-down  you'd  prefer  Sam  Clark  to  any  damn  long-haired 
artist." 

"  Oh— well " 

"  Oh  well!  "  mockingly.  "  My,  we're  just  going  to  change 
everything,  aren't  we!  Going  to  tell  fellows  that  have  been 
making  movies  for  ten  years  how  to  direct  'em;  and  tell  archi 
tect^  how  to  build  towns;  and  make  the  magazines  publish 
nothing  but  a  lot  of  highbrow  stories  about  old  maids,  and 
about  wives  that  don't  know  what  they  want.  Oh,  we're 
a  terror!  .  .  .  Come  on  now,  Carrie;  come  out  of  it; 
wake  up!  You've  got  a  fine  nerve,  kicking  about  a  movie  be 
cause  it  shows  a  few  legs!  Why,  you're  always  touting  these 
Greek  dancers,  or  whatever  they  are,  that  don't  even  wear  a 
shimmy!  " 

"  But,  dear,  the  trouble  with  that  film— it  wasn't  that  it 
got  in  so  many  legs,  but  that  it  giggled  coyly  and  promised 


200  MAIN    STREET 

to  show  more  of  them,  and  then  didn't  keep  the  promise.  It 
was  Peeping  Tom's  idea  of  humor." 

"  I  don't  get  you.    Look  here  now " 

She  lay  awake,  while  he  rumbled  with  sleep. 

"  I  must  go  on.  My  l  crank  ideas/  he  calls  them.  I  thought 
that  adoring  him,  watching  him  operate,  would  be  enough.  It 
isn't.  Not  after  the  first  thrill. 

"  I  don't  want  to  hurt  him.     But  I  must  go  on. 

"  It  isn't  enough,  to  stand  by  while  he  fills  an  automobile 
radiator  and  chucks  me  bits  of  information. 

"  If  I  stood  by  and  admired  him  long  enough,  I  would  be 
content.  I  would  become  a  '  nice  little  woman.'  The  Village 

Virus.  Already I'm  not  reading  anything.  I  haven't 

touched  the  piano  for  a  week.  I'm  letting  the  days  drown  in 
worship  of  '  a  good  deal,  ten  plunks  more  per  acre.'  I  won't! 
I  won't  succumb! 

"How?  I've  failed  at  everything:  the  Thanatopsis,  par 
ties,  pioneers,  city  hall,  Guy  and  Vida.  But It  doesn't 

matter]  I'm  not  trying  to  '  reform  the  town '  now.  I'm  not 
trying  to  organize  Browning  Clubs,  and  sit  in  clean  white 
kids  yearning  up  at  lecturers  with  ribbony  eyeglasses.  I  am 
trying  to  save  my  soul. 

"  Will  Kennicott,  asleep  there,  trusting  me,  thinking  he  holds 
me.  And  I'm  leaving  him.  All  of  me  left  him  when  he  laughed 
at  me.  It  wasn't  enough  for  him  that  I  admired  him;  I  must 
change  myself  and  grow  like  him.  He  takes  advantage.  No 
more.  It's  finished.  I  will  go  on." 


IV 

Her  violin  lay  on  top  of  the  upright  piano.  She  picked  it 
up.  Since  she  had  last  touched  it  the  dried  strings  had  snapped, 
and  upon  it  lay  a  gold  and  crimson  cigar-band. 


V 

She  longed  to  see  Guy  Pollock,  for  the  confirming  of  the 
brethren  in  the  faith.  But  Kennicott's  dominance  was  heavy 
upon  her.  She  could  not  determine  whether  she  was  checked 
by  fear  or  him,  or  by  inertia — by  dislike  of  the  emotional  labor 
of  the  "  scenes  "  which  would  be  involved  in  asserting  inde 
pendence.  She  was  like  the  revolutionist  at  fifty:  not  afraid 


MAIN    STREET  201 

of  death,  but  bored  by  the  probability  of  bad  steaks  and  bad 
breaths  and  sitting  up  all  night  on  windy  barricades. 

The  second  evening  after  the  movies  she  impulsively  sum 
moned  Vida  Sherwin  and  Guy  to  the  house  for  pop-corn  and 
cider.  In  the  living-room  Vida  and  Kennicott  debated  "  the 
value  of  manual  training  in  grades  below  the  eighth,"  while 
Carol  sat  beside  Guy  at  the  dining  table,  buttering  pop-corn. 
She  was  quickened  by  the  speculation  in  his  eyes.  She 
murmured: 

"  Guy,  do  you  want  to  help  me?  " 

"  My  dear!     How?  " 

"  I  don't  know!  " 

He  waited. 

"  I  think  I  want  you  to  help  me  find  out  what  has  made  the 
darkness  of  the  women.  Gray  darkness  and  shadowy  trees. 
We're  all  in  it,  ten  million  women,  young  married  women  with 
good  prosperous  husbands,  and  business  women  in  linen  collars, 
and  grandmothers  that  gad  out  to  teas,  and  wives  of  under 
paid  miners,  and  farmwives  who  really  like  to  make  butter  and 
go  to  church.  What  is  it  we  want — and  need?  Will  Kennicott 
there  would  say  that  we  need  lots  of  children  and  hard  work. 
But  it  isn't  that.  There's  the  same  discontent  in  women  with 
eight  children  and  one  more  coming — always  one  more  coming! 
And  you  find  it  in  stenographers  and  wives  who  scrub,  just 
as  much  as  in  girl  college-graduates  who  wonder  how  they  can 
escape  their  kind  parents.  What  do  we  want?  " 

"  Essentially,  I  think,  you  are  like  myself,  Carol;  you  want 
to  go  back  to  an  age  of  tranquillity  and  charming  manners. 
You  want  to  enthrone  good  taste  again." 

"  Just  good  taste?  Fastidious  people?  Oh — no!  I  be 
lieve  all  of  us  want  the  same  things — we're  all  together,* 
the  industrial  workers  and  the  women  and  the  farmers  and  the 
negro  race  and  the  Asiatic  colonies,  and  even  a  few  of  the 
Respectables.  It's  all  the  same  revolt,  in  all  the  classes  that 
have  waited  and  taken  advice.  I  think  perhaps  we  want  a 
more  conscious  life.  We're  tired  of  drudging  and  sleeping  and 
dying.  We're  tired  of  seeing  just  a  few  people  able  to  be  in 
dividualists.  We're  tired  of  always  deferring  hope  till  the  next 
generation.  We're  tired  of  hearing  the  politicians  and  priests 
and  cautious  reformers  (and  the  husbands!)  coax  us,  l  Be 
calm!  Be  patient!  Wait!  We  have  the  plans  for  a  Utopia 
already  made;  just  give  us  a  bit  more  time  and  we'll  produce 


202  MAIN   STREET 

it;  trust  us;  we're  wiser  than  you.*  For  ten  thousand  years 
they've  said  that.  We  want  our  Utopia  now — and  we're  going 
to  try  our  hands  at  it.  All  we  want  is — everything  for  all  of 
us!  For  every  housewife  and  every  longshoreman  and  every 
Hindu  nationalist  and  every  teacher.  We  want  everything. 

We  sha'n't  get  it.     So  we  sha'n't  ever  be  content " 

She  wondered  why  he  was  wincing.  He  broke  in: 
"  See  here,  my  dear,  I  certainly  hope  you  don't  class  your 
self  with  a  lot  of  trouble-making  labor-leaders!  Democracy 
is  all  right  theoretically,  and  I'll  admit  there  are  industrial  in 
justices,  but  I'd  rather  have  them  than  see  the  world  reduced 
to  a  dead  level  of  mediocrity.  I  refuse  to  believe  that  you 
have  anything  in  common  with  a  lot  of  laboring  men  rowing 
for  bigger  wages  so  that  they  can  buy  wretched  flivvers  and 

hideous  player-pianos  and " 

At  this  second,  in  Buenos  Ayres,  a  newspaper  editor  broke 
his  routine  of  being  bored  by  exchanges  to  assert,  "  Any  in 
justice  is  better  than  seeing  the  world  reduced  to  a  gray  level 
of  scientific  dullness."  At  this  second  a  clerk  standing  at 
the  bar  of  a  New  York  saloon  stopped  milling  his  secret  fear 
of  his  nagging  office-manager  long  enough  to  growl  at  the 
chauffeur  beside  him,  "  Aw,  you  socialists  make  me  sick!  I'm 
an  individualist.  I  ain't  going  to  be  nagged  by  no  bureau^ 
and  take  orders  off  labor-leaders.  And  mean  to  say  a  hobo's 
as  good  as  you  and  me?  " 

At  this  second  Carol  realized  that  for  all  Guy's  love  of  dead 
elegances  his  timidity  was  as  depressing  to  her  as  the  bulkiness 
of  Sam  Clark.  She  realized  that  he  was  not  a  mystery,  as  she 
had  excitedly  believed;  not  a  romantic  messenger  from  the 
World  Outside  on  whom  she  could  count  for  escape.  He  be 
longed  to  Gopher  Prairie,  absolutely.  She  was  snatched  back 
from  a  dream  of  far  countries,  and  found  herself  on  Main 
Street. 

He  was  completing  his  protest,  "  You  don't  want  to  be 
mixed  up  in  all  this  orgy  of  meaningless  discontent?  " 

She  soothed  him.  "  No,  I  don't.  I'm  not  heroic.  I'm 
scared  by  all  the  fighting  that's  going  on  in  the  world.  I 
want  nobility  and  adventure,  but  perhaps  I  want  still  more  to 
curl  on  the  hearth  with  some  one  I  love." 

"Would  you " 

He  did  not  finish  it.  He  picked  up  a  handful  of  pop-corny 
let  it  run  through  his  fingers,  looked  at  Ler  wistfully. 


MAIN    STREET  203 

With  the  loneliness  of  one  who  has  put  away  a  possible  love 
Carol  saw  that  he  was  a  stranger.  She  saw,  that  he  had  never 
been  anything  but  a  frame  on  which  she  had  hung  shining  gar 
ments.  If  she  had  let  him  diffidently  make  love  to  her,  it  was 
not  because  she  cared,  but  because  she  did  not  care,  because 
it  did  not  matter. 

She  smiled  at  him  with  the  exasperating  tactfulness  of  a 
woman  checking  a  flirtation;  a  smile  like  an  airy  pat  on  the 
arm.  She  sighed,  "  You're  a  dear  to  let  me  tell  you  my  imagi 
nary  troubles."  She  bounced  up,  and  trilled,  "  Shall  we  take 
the  pop-corn  in  to  them  now?  " 

Guy  looked  after  her  desolately. 

While  she  teased  Vida  and  Kennicott  she  was  repeating,  "  I 
must  go  on." 

VI 

Miles  Bjornstam,  the  pariah  "Red  Swede,"  had  brought 
his  circular  saw  and  portable  gasoline  engine  to  the  house,  to 
cut  the  cords  of  poplar  for  the  kitchen  range.  Kennicott  had 
given  the  order;  Carol  knew  nothing  of  it  till  she  heard  the 
ringing  of  the  saw,  and  glanced  out  to  see  Bjornstam,  in 
black  leather  jacket  and  enormous  ragged  purple  mittens,  press 
ing  sticks  against  the  whirling  blade,  and  flinging  the  stove- 
lengths  to  one  side.  The  red  irritable  motor  kept  up  a  red 
irritable  "  tip- tip- tip- tip- tip- tip."  The  whine  of  the  saw  rose 
till  it  simulated  the  shriek  of  a  fire-alarm  whistle  at  night, 
but  always  at  the  end  it  gave  a  lively  metallic  clang,  and  in 
the  stillness  she  heard  the  flump  of  the  cut  stick  falling  on  the 
pile. 

She  threw  a  motor  robe  over  her,  ran  out.    Bjornstam  wel 
comed  her,  "  Well,  well,  well!    Here's  old  Miles,  fresh  as  ever. 
Well  say,  that's  all  right;  he  ain't  even  begun  to  be  cheeky  yet; 
next  summer  he's  going  to  take  you  out  on  his  horse-trading 
trip,  clear  into  Idaho." 
"  Yes,  and  I  may  go!  " 
"  How's  tricks?     Crazy  about  the  town  yet?  " 
"No,  but  I  probably  shall  be,  some  day." 
"  Don't  let  'em  get  you.     Kick  'em  in  the  face!  " 
He  shouted  at  her  while  he  worked.     The  pile  of  stove- 
wood  grew  astonishingly.    The  pale  bark  of  the  poplar  sticks 
was  mottled  with  lichens  of  sage-green  and  dusty  gray;  the 
newly   sawed    ends   were   fr^sh-colored,    with    the   agreeable 


204  MAIN   STREET 

roughness  of  a  woolen  muffler.  To  the  sterile  winter  sir  the 
wood  gave  a  scent  of  March  sap. 

Kennicott  telephoned  that  he  was  going  into  the  country. 
Bjornstam  had  not  finished  his  work  at  noon,  and  she  invited 
him  to  have  dinner  with  Bea  in  the  kitchen.  She  wished  that 
she  were  independent  enough  to  dine  with  these  her  guests. 
She  considered  their  friendliness,  she  sneered  at  "  social  dis 
tinctions,"  she  raged  at  her  own  taboos — and  she  continued  to 
regard  them  as  retainers  and  herself  as  a  lady.  She  sat  in 
the  dining-room  and  listened  through  the  door  to  Bjornstam's 
booming  and  Bea's  giggles.  She  was  the  more  absurd  to  her 
self  in  that,  after  the  rite  of  dining  alone,  she  could  go  out  to 
the  kitchen,  lean  against  the  sink,  and  talk  to  them. 

They  were  attracted  to  each  other;  a  Swedish  Othello  and 
Desdemona,  more  useful  and  amiable  than  their  prototypes. 
Bjornstam  told  his  scapes:  selling  horses  in  a  Montana  min 
ing-camp,  breaking  a  log-jam,  being  impertinent  to  a  "  two- 
fisted  "  millionaire  lumberman.  Bea  gurgled  "  Oh  my!  "  and 
kept  his  coffee  cup  filled. 

He  took  a  long  time  to  finish  the  wood.  He  had  frequently 
to  go  into  the  kitchen  to  get  warm.  Carol  heard  him  con 
fiding  to  Bea,  "  You're  a  darn  nice  Swede  girl.  I  guess  if 
I  had  a  woman  like  you  I  wouldn't  be  such  a  sorehead.  Gosh, 
your  kitchen  is  clean;  makes  an  old  bach  feel  sloppy.  Say, 
that's  nice  hair  you  got.  Huh?  Me  fresh?  Saaaay,  girl,  if 
I  ever  do  get  fresh,  you'll  know  it.  Why,  I  could  pick  you  up 
with  one  finger,  and  hold  you  in  the  air  long  enough  to  read 
Robert  J.  Ingersoll  clean  through.  Ingersoll?  Oh,  he's  a 
religious  writer.  Sure.  You'd  like  him  fine." 

When  he  drove  off  he  waved  to  Bea ;  and  Carol,  lonely  at  the 
window  above,  was  envious  of  their  pastoral. 

"And  I But  I  will  go  on." 


CHAPTER  XVII 


THEY  were  driving  down  the  lake  to  the  cottages  that  moonlit 
January  night,  twenty  of  them  in  the  bob-sled.  They  sang 
"  Toy  Land  "  and  "  Seeing  Nelly  Home  ";  they  leaped  from  the 
low  back  of  the  sled  to  race  over  the  slippery  snow  ruts;  and 
when  they  were  tired  they  climbed  on  the  runners  for  a  lift. 
The  moon-tipped  flakes  kicked  up  by  the  horses  settled  over  the 
revelers  and  dripped  down  their  necks,  but  they  laughed,  yelped, 
beat  their  leather  mittens  against  their  chests.  The  harness 
rattled,  the  sleigh-bells  were  frantic,  Jack  Elder's  setter  sprang 
beside  the  horses,  barking. 

For  a  time  Carol  raced  with  them.  The  cold  air  gave 
fictive  power.  She  felt  that  she  could  run  on  all  night,  leap 
twenty  feet  at  a  stride.  But  the  excess  of  energy  tired  her,  and 
she  was  glad  to  snuggle  under  the  comforters  which  covered  the 
hay  in  the  sled-box. 

In  the  midst  of  the  babel  she  found  enchanted  quietude. 

Along  the  road  the  shadows  from  oak-branches  were  inked 
on  the  snow  like  bars  of  music.  Then  the  sled  came  out  on  the 
surface  of  Lake  Minniemashie.  Across  the  thick  ice  was  a 
veritable  road,  a  short-cut  for  farmers.  On  the  glaring  ex 
panse  of  the  lake — levels  of  hard  crust,  flashes  of  green  ice 
blown  clear,  chains  of  drifts  ribbed  like  the  sea-beach — the 
moonlight  was  overwhelming.  It  stormed  on  the  snow,  it 
turned  the  woods  ashore  into  crystals  of  fire.  The  night  was 
tropical  and  voluptuous.  In  that  drugged  magic  there  was  no 
difference  between  heavy  heat  and  insinuating  cold. 

Carol  was  dream-strayed.  The  turbulent  voices,  even  Guy 
Pollock  being  connotative  beside  her,  were  nothing.  She  re 
peated: 

Deep  on  the  convent-roof  the  snows 
Are  sparkling  to  the  moon. 

The  words  and  the  light  blurred  into  one  vast  indefinite 
happiness,  and  she  believed  that  some  great  thing  was  coming 


206  MAIN   STREET 

to  her.  She  withdrew  from  the  clamor  into  a  worship  of  in 
comprehensible  gods.  The  night  expanded,  she  was  conscious 
of  the  universe,  and  all  mysteries  stooped  down  to  her. 

She  was  jarred  out  of  her  ecstasy  as  the  bob-sled  bumped  up 
the  steep  road  to  the  bluff  where  stood  the  cottages. 

They  dismounted  at  Jack  Elder's  shack.  The  interior  walls 
of  unpainted  boards,  which  had  been  grateful  in  August,  were 
forbidding  in  the  chill.  In  fur  coats  and  mufflers  tied  over 
caps  they  were  a  strange  company,  bears  and  walruses  talk 
ing.  Jack  Elder  lighted  the  shavings  waiting  in  the  belly  of  a 
cast-iron  stove  which  was  like  an  enlarged  bean-pot.  They 
piled  their  wraps  high  on  a  rocker,  and  cheered  the  rocker  as 
it  solemnly  tipped  over  backward. 

Mrs.  Elder  and  Mrs.  Sam  Clark  made  coffee  in  an  enormous 
blackened  tin  pot;  Vida  Sherwin  and  Mrs.  McGanum  unpacked 
doughnuts  and  gingerbread;  Mrs.  Dave  Dyer  warmed  up  "  hot 
dogs  " — frankfurters  in  rolls;  Dr.  Terry  Gould,  after  announc 
ing,  "Ladies  and  gents,  prepare  to  be  shocked;  shock  line 
forms  on  the  right,"  produced  a  bottle  of  bourbon  whisky. 

The  others  danced,  muttering  "  Ouch!  "  as  their  frosted  feet 
struck  the  pine  planks.  Carol  had  lost  her  dream.  Harry 
Haydock  lifted  her  by  the  waist  and  swung  her.  She  laughed. 
The  gravity  of  the  people  who  stood  apart  and  talked  made 
her  the  more  impatient  for  frolic. 

Kennicott,  Sam  Clark,  Jackson  Elder,  young  Dr.  McGanum, 
and  James  Madison  Rowland,  teetering  on  their  toes  near  the 
stove,  conversed  with  the  sedate  pomposity  of  the  commercialist. 
In  details  the  men  were  unlike,  yet  they  said  the  same  things 
in  the  same  hearty  monotonous  voices.  You  had  to  look  at 
them  to  see  which  was  speaking. 

"  Well,  we  made  pretty  good  time  coming  up,"  from  one — 
any  one. 

"  Yump,  we  hit  it  up  after  we  struck  the  good  going  on  the 
lake." 

"  Seems  kind  of  slow  though,  after  driving  an  auto." 

"  Yump,  it  does,  at  that.  Say,  how'd  you  make  out  with 
that  Sphinx  tire  you  got?  " 

"  Seems  to  hold  out  fine.  Still,  I  don't  know's  I  like  it  any 
better  than  the  Roadeater  Cord." 

"  Yump,  nothing  better  than  a  Roadeater.  Especially  the 
cord.  The  cord's  lots  better  than  the  fabric." 

"  Yump,  you  said  something Roadeater's  a  good  tire." 


MAIN   STREET  207 

"  Say,  how'd  you  come  out  with  Pete  Garsheim  on  his  pay 
ments?  " 

"  He's  paying  up  pretty  good.  That's  a  nice  piece  of  land 
he's  got." 

"  Yump,  that's  a  dandy  farm." 

"  Yump,  Pete's  got  a  good  place  there." 

They  glided  from  these  serious  topics  into  the  jocose  insults 
which  are  the  wit  of  Main  Street.  Sam  Clark  was  particularly 
apt  at  them.  "  What's  this  wild-eyed  sale  of  summer  caps 
you  think  you're  trying  to  pull  off?  "  he  clamored  at  Harry 
Haydock.  "  Did  you  steal  'em,  c~  are  you  just  overcharging  us, 
as  usual?  ...  Oh  say,  speaking  about  caps,  d'l  ever  tell 
you  the  good  one  I've  got  on  Will?  The  doc  thinks  he's  a 
pretty  good  driver,  fact,  he  thinks  he's  almost  got  human  in 
telligence,  but  one  time  he  had  his  machine  out  in  the  rain, 
and  the  poor  fish,  he  hadn't  put  on  chains,  and  thinks  I " 

Carol  had  heard  the  story  rather  often.  She  fled  back 
to  the  dancers,  and  at  Dave  Dyer's  masterstroke  of  dropping  an 
icicle  down  Mrs.  McGanum's  back  she  applauded  hysterically. 

They  sat  on  the  floor,  devouring  the  food.  The  men  giggled 
amiably  as  they  passed  the  whisky  'bottle,  and  laughed, 
"  There's  a  real  sport!  "  when  Juanita  Haydock  took  a  sip. 
Carol  tried  to  follow;  she  believed  that  she  desired  to  be  drunk 
and  riotous ;  but  the  whisky  choked  her  and  as  she  saw  Kenni- 
cott  frown  she  handed  the  bottle  on  repentantly.  Somewhat 
too  late  she  remembered  that  she  had  given  up  domesticity  anc* 
repentance. 

"  Let's  play  charades!  "  said  Raymie  Wutherspoon. 

"  Oh  yes,  do  let  us,"  said  Ella  Stowbody. 

"That's  the  caper,"  sanctioned  Harry  Haydock. 

They  interpreted  the  word  "  making  "  as  May  and  King. 
The  crown  was  a  red  flannel  mitten  cocked  on  Sam  Clark's 
broad  pink  bald  head.  They  forgot  they  were  respectable. 
They  made-believe.  Carol  was  stimulated  to  cry: 

"Let's  form  a  dramatic  club  and  give  a  play!  Shall  we? 
It's  been  so  much  fun  tonight!  " 

They  looked  affable. 

"  Sure,"  observed  Sam  Clark  loyally. 

"Oh,  do  let  us!  I  think  it  would  be  lovely  to  present 
'  Romeo  and  Juliet '!  "  yearned  Ella  Stowbody. 

"  Be  a  whale  of  a  lot  of  fun,"  Dr.  Terry  Gould  granted. 

"  But  if  we  did,"  Carol  cautioned.  "  it  would  be  awfully 


208  MAIN   STREET 

silly  to  have  amateur  theatricals.  We  ought  to  paint  our  own 
scenery  and  everything,  and  really  do  something  fine.  There'd 
be  a  lot  of  hard  work.  Would  you — would  we  all  be  punctual 
at  rehearsals,  do  you  suppose?  " 

"  You  bet!  "  "  Sure."  "  That's  the  idea."  "  Fellow  ought 
to  be  prompt  at  rehearsals,"  they  all  agreed. 

"  Then  let's  meet  next  week  and  form  the  Gopher  Prairie 
Dramatic  Association!  "  Carol  sang. 

She  drove  home  loving  these  friends  who  raced  through  moon- 
lit  snow,  had  Bohemian  parties,  and  were  about  to  create  beauty 
in  the  theater.  Everything  was  solved.  She  would  be  an  au 
thentic  part  of  the  town,  yet  escape  the  coma  of  the  Village 
Virus.  .  .  .  She  would  be  free  of  Kennicott  again,  without 
hurting  him,  without  his  knowing. 

She  had  triumphed. 

The  moon  was  small  and  high  now,  and  unheeding. 


Though  they  had  all  been  certain  that  they  longed  for  the 
privilege  of  attending 'committee  meetings  and  rehearsals,  the 
dramatic  association  as  definitely  formed  consisted  only  of 
Kennicott,  Carol,  Guy  Pollock,  Vida  Sherwin,  Ella  Stowbody, 
the  Harry  Haydocks,  the  Dave  Dyers,  Raymie  Wutherspoon, 
Dr.  Terry  Gould,  and  four  new  candidates:  flirtatious  Rita  Sim 
ons,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Harvey  Dillon  and  Myrtle  Cass,  an  uncomely 
but  intense  girl  of  nineteen.  Of  these  fifteen  only  seven  came 
to  the  first  meeting.  The  rest  telephoned  their  unparalleled 
regrets  and  engagements  and  illnesses,  and  announced  that 
they  would  be  present  at  all  other  meetings  through  eternity. 

Carol  was  made  president  and  director. 

She  had  added  the  Dillons.  Despite  Kennicott's  apprehen 
sion  the  dentist  and  his  wife  had  not  been  taken  up  by  the 
Westlakes  but  had  remained  as  definitely  outside  really  smart 
society  as  Willis  Woodford,  who  was  teller,  bookkeeper,  and 
janitor  in  Stowbody's  bank.  Carol  had  noted  Mrs.  Dillon 
dragging  past  the  house  during  a  bridge  of  the  Jolly  Seventeen, 
looking  in  with  pathetic  lips  at  the  splendor  of  the  accepted. 
She  impulsively  invited  the  Dillons  to  the  dramatic  associa 
tion  meeting,  and  when  Kennicott  was  brusque  to  them  she  was 
unusually  cordial,  and  felt  virtuous. 

That  self-approval  balanced  her  disappointment  at  the  small- 


MAIN   STREET  209 

ness  of  the  meeting,  and  her  embarrassment  during  Raymie 
Wutherspoon's  repetitions  of  "  The  stage  needs  uplifting,"  and 
"  I  believe  that  there  are  great  lessons  in  some  plays." 

Ella  Stowbody,  who  was  a  professional,  having  studied  elo 
cution  in  Milwaukee,  disapproved  of  Carol's  enthusiasm  for 
recent  plays.  Miss  Stowbody  expressed  the  fundamental  princi 
ple  of  the  American  drama:  the  only  way  to  be  artistic  is  to 
present  Shakespeare.  As  no  one  listened  to  her  she  sat  back 
and  looked  like  Lady  Macbeth. 


m 

The  Little  Theaters,  which  were  to  give  piquancy  to  Ameri 
can  drama  three  or  four  years  later,  were  only  in  embryo.  But 
of  this  fast  coming  revolt  Carol  had  premonitions.  She  knew 
from  some  lost  magazine  article  that  in  Dublin  were  innovators 
called  The  Irish  Players.  She  knew  confusedly  that  a  man 
named  Gordon  Craig  had  painted  scenery — or  had  he  written 
plays?  She  felt  that  in  the  turbulence  of  the  drama  she  was 
discovering  a  history  more  important  than  the  commonplace 
chronicles  which  dealt  with  senators  and  their  pompous  puerili 
ties.  She  had  a  sensation  of  familiarity;  a  dream  of  sitting 
in  a  Brussels  cafe  and  going  afterward  to  a  tiny  gay  theater 
under  a  cathedral  wall. 

The  advertisement  in  the  Minneapolis  paper  leaped  from 
the  page  to  her  eyes: 

The  Cosmos  School  of  Music,  Oratory,  and 
Dramatic  Art  announces  a  program  of  four 
one-act  plays  by  Schnitzler,  Shaw,  Yeats,  and 
Lord  Dunsany. 

She  had  to  be  there!  She  begged  Kennicott  to  "  run  down 
to  the  Cities  "  with  her. 

"Well,!  don't  know.  Be  fun  to  take  in  a  show,  but  why 
the  deuce  do  you  want  to  see  those  darn  foreign  plays,  given 
by  a  lot  of  amateurs?  Why  don't  you  wait  for  a  regular  play, 
later  on?  There's  going  to  be  some  corkers  coming:  i  Lottie 
of  Two-Gun  Rancho/  and  '  Cops  and  Crooks ' — real  Broad 
way  stuff,  with  the  New  York  casts.  What's  this  junk  you 
want  to  see?  Hm.  '  How  He  Lied  to  Her  Husband.'  That 
doesn't  listen  so  bad.  Sounds  racy.  And.  uh,  well,  I  could 


210  MAIN    STREET 

go  to  the  motor  show,  I  suppose.  I'd  like  to  see  this  new 
Hup  roadster.  Well " 

She  never  knew  which  attraction  made  him  decide. 

She  had  four  days  of  delightful  worry — over  the  hole  in 
her  one  good  silk  petticoat,  the  loss  of  a  string  of  beads  from 
her  chiffon  and  brown  velvet  frock,  the  catsup  stain  on  her  best 
georgette  crepe  blouse.  She  wailed,  "  I  haven't  a  single  solitary 
thing  that's  fit  to  be  seen  in,"  and  enjoyed  herself  very  much 
indeed. 

Kennicott  went  about  casually  letting  people  know  that  he 
was  "  going  to  run  down  to  the  Cities  and  see  some  shows." 

As  the  train  plodded  through  the  gray  prairie,  on  a  windless 
day  with  the  smoke  from  the  engine  clinging  to  the  fields  in 
giant  cotton-rolls,  in  a  low  and  writhing  wall  which  shut  off 
the  snowy  fields,  she  did  not  look  out  of  the  window,  She 
closed  her  eyes  and  hummed,  and  did  not  know  that  she  was 
humming. 

She  was  the  young  poet  attacking  fame  and  Paris. 

In  the  Minneapolis  station  the  crowd  of  lumberjacks, 
farmers,  and  Swedish  families  with  innumerous  children  and 
grandparents  and  paper  parcels,  their  foggy  crowding  and  their 
clamor  confused  her.  She  felt  rustic  in  this  once  familiar  city, 
after  a  year  and  a  half  of  Gopher  Prairie.  She  was  certain 
that  Kennicott  was  taking  the  wrong  trolley-car.  By  dusk,  the 
liquor  warehouses,  Hebraic  clothing-shops,  and  lodging- 
houses  on  lower  Hennepin  Avenue  were  smoky,  hideous,  ill- 
tempered.  She  was  battered  by  the  noise  and  shuttling  of  the 
rush-hour  traffic.  When  a  clerk  in  an  overcoat  too  closely 
fitted  at  the  waist  stared  at  her,  she  moved  nearer  to  Kennicott's 
arm.  The  clerk  was  flippant  and  urban.  He  was  a  superior 
person,  used  to  this  tumult.  Was  he  laughing  at  her? 

For  a  moment  she  wanted  the  secure  quiet  of  Gopher 
Prairie. 

In  the  hotel-lobby  she  was  self-conscious.  She  was  not 
used  to  hotels;  she  remembered  with  jealousy  how  often 
Juanita  Haydock  talked  of  the  famous  hotels  in  Chicago.  She 
could  not  face  the  traveling  salesmen,  baronial  in  large  leather 
chairs.  She  wanted  people  to  believe  that  her  husband  and 
she  were  accustomed  to  luxury  and  chill  elegance;  she  was 
faintly  angry  at  him  for  the  vulgar  way  in  which,  after  sign 
ing  the  register  "  Dr.  W.  P.  Kennicott  &  wife,"  he  bellowed  at 
the  clerk,  "  Got  a  nice  room  with  bath  for  us,  old  man?  " 


MAIN   STREET  211 

She  gazed  about  haughtily,  but  as  she  discovered  that  no  one 
was  interested  in  her  she  felt  foolish,  and  ashamed  of  her 
irritation. 

She  asserted,  "  This  silly  lobby  is  too  florid,"  and  simultan 
eously  she  admired  it:  the  onyx  columns  with  gilt  capitals,  the 
crown-embroidered  velvet  curtains  at  the  restaurant  door,  the 
silk-roped  alcove  where  pretty  girls  perpetually  waited  for 
mysterious  men,  the  two-pound  boxes  of  candy  and  the  variety 
of  magazines  at  the  news-stand.  The  hidden  orchestra  was 
lively.  She  saw  a  mair  who  looked  like  a  European  diplomat, 
in  a  loose  top-coat  and  a  Homburg  hat.  A  woman  with  a 
broadtail  coat,  a  heavy  lace  veil,  pearl  earrings,  and  a  close 
black  hat  entered  the  restaurant.  "Heavens!  That's  the 
first  really  smart  woman  I've  seen  in  a  year!  "  Carol  exulted. 
She  felt  metropolitan. 

But  as  she  followed  Kennicott  to  the  elevator  the  coat- 
check  girl,  a  confident  young  woman,  with  cheeks  powdered 
like  lime,  and  a  blouse  low  and  thin  and  furiously  crimson, 
inspected  her,  and  under  that  supercilious  glance  Carol  was 
shy  again.  She  unconsciously  waited  for  the  bellboy  to  precede 
her  into  the  elevator.  When  he  snorted  "  Go  ahead!  "  she  was 
mortified.  He  thought  she  was  a  hayseed,  she  worried. 

The  moment  she  was  in  their  room,  with  the  bellboy  safely 
out  of  the  way,  she  looked  critically  at  Kennicott.  For  the 
first  time  in  months  she  really  saw  him. 

His  clothes  were  too  heavy  and  provincial.  His  decent 
gray  suit,  made  by  Nat  Hicks  of  Gopher  Prairie,  might  have 
been  of  sheet  iron;  it  had  no  distinction  of  cut,  no  easy  grace 
like  the  diplomat's  Burberry.  His  black  shoes  were  blunt  and 
not  well  polished.  His  scarf  was  a  stupid  brown.  He  needed 
a  shave. 

But  she  forgot  her  doubt  as  she  realized  the  ingenuities  of 
the  room.  She  ran  about,  turning  on  the  taps  of  the  bath 
tub,  which  gushed  instead  of  dribbling  like  the  taps  at  home, 
snatching  the  new  wash-rag  out  of  its  envelope  of  oiled 
paper,  trying  the  rose-shaded  light  between  the  twin  beds, 
pulling  out  the  drawers  of  the  kidney-shaped  walnut  desk  to 
examine  the  engraved  stationery,  planning  to  write  on  it  to 
w«ry  one  she  knew,  admiring  the  claret-colored  velvet  arm 
chair  and  the  blue  rug,  testing  the  ice-water  tap,  and  squealing 
happily  when  the  water  really  did  come  out  cold.  She  flung 
her  arms  about  Kennicott,  kissed  him. 


212  MAIN    STREET 

"  Like  it,  old  lady?  " 

"  It's  adorable.  It's  so  amusing.  I  love  you  for  bringing 
me.  You  really  are  a  dear!  " 

He  looked  blankly  indulgent,  and  yawned,  and  condescended, 
"  That's  a  pretty  slick  arrangement  on  the  radiator,  so  you  can 
adjust  it  at  any  temperature  you  want.  Must  take  a  big 
furnace  to  run  this  place.  Gosh,  I  hope  Bea  remembers  to 
turn  off  the  drafts  tonight." 

Under  the  glass  cover  of  the  dressing-table  was  a  menu  with 
the  most  enchanting  dishes:  breast  of  guinea  hen  De  Vitresse, 
pommes  de  terre  a  la  Russe,  meringue  Chantilly,  gateaux 
Bruxelles. 

"  Oh,  let's I'm  going  to  have  a  hot  bath,  and  put  on  my 

new  hat  with  the  wool  flowers,  and  let's  go  down  and  eat  for 
hours,  and  we'll  have  a  cocktail!  "  she  chanted. 

While  Kennicott  labored  over  ordering  it  was  annoying  to 
see  him  permit  the  waiter  to  be  impertinent,  but  as  the  cock 
tail  elevated  her  to  a  bridge  among  colored  stars,  as  the 
oysters  came  in — not  canned  oysters  in  the  Gopher  Prairie 
fashion,  but  on  the  half-shell — she  cried,  "  If  you  only  knew 
how  wonderful  it  is  not  to  have  had  to  plan  this  dinner,  and 
order  it  at  the  butcher's  and  fuss  and  think  about  it,  and  then 
watch  Bea  cook  it!  I  feel  so  free.  And  to  have  new  kinds  of 
food,  and  different  patterns  of  dishes  and  linen,  and  not  worry 
about  whether  the  pudding  is  being  spoiled!  Oh,  this  is  a 
great  moment  for  me!  " 


IV 

They  had  all  the  experiences  of  provincials  in  a  metropolis. 
After  breakfast  Carol  bustled  to  a  hair-dresser's,  bought  gloves 
and  a  blouse,  and  importantly  met  Kennicott  in  front  of  an 
optician's,  in  accordance  with  plans  laid  down,  revised,  and 
verified.  They  admired  the  diamonds  and  furs  and  frosty 
silverware  and  mahogany  chairs  and  polished  morocco  sewing- 
boxes  in  shop-windows,  and  were  abashed  by  the  throngs  in  the 
department-stores,  and  were  bullied  by  a  clerk  into  buying  too 
many  shirts  for  Kennicott,  and  gaped  at  the  "  clever  novelty 
perfumes — just  in  from  New  York."  Carol  got  three  books 
on  the  theater,  and  spent  an  exultant  hour  in  warning  herself 
that  she  could  not  afford  this  rajah-silk  frock,  in  thinking  how 
envious  it  would  make  Juanita  Haydock,  in  closing  her  eyes, 


MAIN   STREET  213 

and  buying  it.  Kennicott  went  from  shop  to  shop,  earnestly 
hunting  down  a  felt-covered  device  to  keep  the  windshield  of 
his  car  clear  of  rain. 

They  dined  extravagantly  at  their  hotel  at  night,  and  next 
morning  sneaked  round  the  corner  to  economize  at  a  Childs* 
Restaurant.  They  were  tired  by  three  in  the  afternoon,  and 
dozed  at  the  motion-pictures  and  said  they  wished  they  were 
back  in  Gopher  Prairie — and  by  eleven  in  the  evening  they  were 
again  so  lively  that  they  went  to  a  Chinese  restaurant  that  was 
frequented  by  clerks  and  their  sweethearts  on  pay-days.  They 
sat  at  a  teak  and  marble  table  eating  Eggs  Fooyung,  and 
listened  to  a  brassy  automatic  piano,  and  were  altogether  cosmo 
politan. 

On  the  street  they  met  people  from  home — the  McGanums. 
They  laughed,  shook  hands  repeatedly,  and  exclaimed,  "  Well, 
this  is  quite  a  coincidence !  "  They  asked  when  the  McGanums 
had  come  down,  and  begged  for  news  of  the  town  they  had 
left  two  days  before.  Whatever  the  McGanums  were  at  home, 
here  they  stood  out  as  so  superior  to  all  the  undistinguishable 
^strangers  absurdly  hurrying  past  that  the  Kennicotts  held 
them  as  long  as  they  could.  The  McGanums  said  good-by 
as  though  they  were  going  to  Tibet  instead  of  to  the  station 
to  catch  No.  7  north.  I 

They  explored  Minneapolis.  Kennicott  was  conversational 
and  technical  regarding  gluten  and  cockle-cylinders  and  No. 
i  Hard,  when  they  were  shown  through  the  gray  stone  hulks 
and  new  cement  elevators  of  the  largest  flour-mills  in  the  world. 
They  looked  across  Loring  Park  and  the  Parade  to  the  towers 
of  St.  Mark's  and  the  Procathedral,  and  the  red  roofs  of 
houses  climbing  Kenwood  Hill.  They  drove  about  the  chain 
of  garden-circled  lakes,  and  viewed  the  houses  of  the  millers 
and  lumbermen  and  real  estate  peers — the  potentates  of  the 
expanding  city.  They  surveyed  the  small  eccentric  bungalows 
with  pergolas,  the  houses  of  pebbledash  and  tapestry  brick 
with  sleeping-porches  above  sun-parlors,  and  one  vast  incredible 
chateau  fronting  the  Lake  of  the  Isles.  They  tramped  through 
a  shining-new  section  of  apartment-houses;  not  the  tall  bleak 
apartments  of  Eastern  cities  but  low  structures  of  cheerful 
yellow  brick,  in  which  each  flat  had  its  glass-enclosed  porch 
with  swinging  couch  and  scarlet  cushions  and  Russian  brass 
bowls.  Between  a  waste  of  tracks  and  a  raw  gouged  hill  they 
found  poverty  in  staggering  shanties. 


214  MAIN    STREET 

They  saw  miles  of  the  city  which  they  had  never  known  in 
their  days  of  absorption  in  college.  They  were  distinguished 
explorers,  and  they  remarked,  in  great  mutual  esteem,  "  I  bet 
Harry  Haydock's  never  seen  the  City  like  this!  Why,  he'd 
never  have  sense  enough  to  study  the  machinery  in  the  mills, 
or  go  through  all  these  outlying  districts.  Wonder  folks  in 
Gopher  Prairie  wouldn't  use  their  legs  and  explore,  the  way  we 
do!  " 

They  had  two  meals  with  Carol's  sister,  and  were  bored,  and 
felt  that  intimacy  which  beatifies  married  people  when  they 
suddenly  admit  that  they  equally  dislike  a  relative  of  either 
of  them. 

So  it  was  with  affection  but  also  with  weariness  that  they 
approached  the  evening  on  which  Carol  was  to  see  the  plays  at 
the  dramatic  school.  Kennicott  suggested  not  going.  "  So  darn 
tired  from  all  this  walking;  don't  know  but  what  we  better 
turn  in  early  and  get  rested  up."  It  was  only  from  duty  that 
Carol  dragged  him  and  herself  out  of  the  warm  hotel,  into  a 
stinking  trolley,  up  the  brownstone  steps  of  the  converted 
residence  which  lugubriously  housed  the  dramatic  school. 


They  were  in  a  long  whitewashed  hall  with  a  clumsy  draw- 
curtain  across  the  front.  The  folding  chairs  were  filled  with 
people  who  looked  washed  and  ironed:  parents  of  the  pupils, 
girl  students,  dutiful  teachers. 

"  Strikes  me  it's  going  to  be  punk.  If  the  first  play  isn^ 
good,  let's  beat  it,"  said  Kennicott  hopefully. 

"  All  right,"  she  yawned.  With  hazy  eyes  she  tried  to  read 
the  lists  of  characters,  which  were  hidden  among  lifeless  ad 
vertisements  of  pianos,  music-dealers,  restaurants,  candy. 

She  regarded  the  Schnitzler  play  with  no  vast  interest.  The 
actors  moved  and  spoke  stiffly.  Just  as  its  cynicism  was  be* 
ginning  to  rouse  her  village-dulled  frivolity,  it  was  over. 

"  Don't  think  a  whale  of  a  lot  of  that.  How  about  taking 
a  sneak?  "  petitioned  Kennicott. 

"Oh,  let's  try  the  next  one,  'How  He  Lied  to  Her 
Husband.' " 

The  Shaw  conceit  amused  her,  and  perplexed  Kennicott: 

"  Strikes  me  it's  darn  fresh.  Thought  it  would  be  racy. 
Don't  know  as  I  think  much  of  a  play  where  a  husba 


MAIN   STREET  215 

actually  claims  he  wants  a  fellow  to  make  love  to  his  wife. 
No  husband  ever  did  that!     Shall  we  shake  a  leg?  " 

"  I  want  to  see  this  Yeats  thing,  l  Land  of  Heart's  Desire.* 
I  used  to  love  it  in  college."  She  was  awake  now,  and  urgent. 
u  I  know  you  didn't  care  so  much  for  Yeats  when  I  read  him 
aloud  to  you,  but  you  just  see  if  you  don't  adore  him  on 
the  stage." 

Most  of  the  cast  were  as  unwieldy  as  oak  chairs  marching, 
and  the  setting  was  an  arty  arrangement  of  batik  scarfs  and 
heavy  tables,  but  Maire  Bruin  was  slim  as  Carol,  and  larger- 
eyed,  and  her  voice  was  a  morning  bell.  In  her,  Carol  lived, 
and  on  her  lifting  voice  was  transported  from  this  sleepy  small 
town  husband  and  all  the  rows  of  polite  parents  to  the  stilly 
loft  of  a  thatched  cottage  where  in  a  green  dimness,  beside  a 
window  caressed  by  linden  branches,  she  bent  over  a  chronicle 
of  twilight  women  and  the  ancient  gods. 

"  Well — gosh — nice  kid  played  that  girl — good-looker,"  said 
Kennicott.  "  Want  to  stay  for  the  last  piece?  Hen?  " 

She  shivered.    She  did  not  answer. 

The  curtain  was  again  drawn  aside.  On  the  stage  they 
saw  nothing  but  long  green  curtains  and  a  leather  chair.  Two 
young  men  in  brown  robes  like  furniture-covers  were  gesturing 
vacuously  and  droning  cryptic  sentences  full  of  repetitions. 

It  was  Carol's  first  hearing  of  Dunsany.  She  sympathized 
with  the  restless  Kennicott  as  he  felt  in  his  pocket  for  a  cigar 
and  unhappily  put  it, back. 

Without  understanding  when  or  how,  without  a  tangible 
change  in  the  stilted  intoning  of  the  stage-puppets,  she  was 
conscious  of  another  time  and  place. 

Stately  and  aloof  among  vainglorious  tiring-maids,  a  queen 
in  robes  that  murmured  on  the  marble  floor,  she  trod  the 
gallery  of  a  crumbling  palace.  In  the  courtyard,  elephants 
trumpeted,  and  swart  men  with  beards  dyed  crimson  stood  with 
blood-stained  hands  folded  upon  their  hilts,  guarding  the 
caravan  from  El  Sharnak,  the  camels  with  Tyrian  stuffs  of 
topaz  and  cinnabar.  Beyond  the  turrets  of  the  outer  wall  the 
jungle  glared  and  shrieked,  and  the  sun  was  furious  above 
drenched  orchids.  A  youth  came  striding  through  the  steel- 
bossed  doors,  the  sword-bitten  doors  that  were  higher  than  ten 
tall  men.  He  was  in  flexible  mail,  and  under  the  rim  of  his 
lanished  morion  were  amorous  curls.  His  hand  was  out  to 

;  before  she  touched  it.  she  could  feel  its  warmth 


216  MAIN    STREET 

"  Gosh  all  hemlock!  What  the  dickens  is  all  this  stuff  about, 
Carrie?  " 

She  was  no  Syrian  queen.  She  was  Mrs.  Dr.  Kennicott. 
She  fell  with  a  jolt  into  a  whitewashed  hall  and  sat  looking 
at  two  scared  girls  and  a  young  man  in  wrinkled  tights. 

Kennicott  fondly  rambled  as  they  left  the  hall: 

"  What  the  deuce  did  that  last  spiel  mean?  Couldn't  make 
head  or  tail  of  it.  If  that's  highbrow  drama,  give  me  a  cow- 
puncher  movie,  every  time!  Thank  God,  that's  over,  and  we 
can  get  to  bed.  Wonder  if  we  wouldn't  make  time  by  walking 
over  to  Nicollet  to  take  a  car?  One  thing  I  will  say  for  that 
dump:  they  had  it  warm  enough.  Must  have  a  big  hot-air 
furnace,  I  guess.  Wonder  how  much  coal  it  takes  to  run  'em 
through  the  winter?  " 

In  the  car  he  affectionately  patted  her  knee,  and  he  was  for 
a  second  the  striding  youth  in  armor;  then  he  was  Doc 
Kennicott  of  Gopher  Prairie,  and  she  was  recaptured  by  Main 
Street.  Never,  not  all  her  life,  would  she  behold  jungles  and 
the  tombs  of  kings.  There  were  strange  things  in  the  world, 
they  really  existed;  but  she  would  never  see  them. 

She  would  recreate  them  in  plays! 

She  would  make  the  dramatic  association  understand  her 
aspiration.  They  would,  surely  they  would 

She  looked  doubtfully  at  the  impenetrable  reality  of  yawning 
trolley  conductor  and  sleepy  passengers  and  placards  adver 
tising  soap  and  underwear. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


SHE  hurried  to  the  first  meeting  of  the  play-reading  committee. 
Her  jungle  romance  had  faded,  but  she  retained  a  religious 
fervor,  a  surge  of  half-formed  thought  about  the  creation  of 
beauty  by  suggestion. 

A  Dunsany  play  would  be  too  difficult  for  the  Gopher  Prairie 
association.  She  would  let  them  compromise  on  Shaw — on 
"  Androcles  and  the  Lion,"  which  had  just  been  published. 

The  committee  was  composed  of  Carol,  Vida  Sherwin,  Guy 
Pollock,  Raymie  Wutherspoon,  and  Juanita  Haydock.  They 
were  exalted  by  the  picture  of  themselves  as  being  simul 
taneously  business-like  and  artistic.  They  were  entertained 
by  Vida  in  the  parlor  of  Mrs.  Elisha  Gurrey's  boarding-house, 
with  its  steel  engraving  of  Grant  at  Appomattox,  its  basket  of 
stereoscopic  views,  and  its  mysterious  stains  on  the  gritty 
carpet. 

Vida  was  an  advocate  of  culture-buying  and  efficiency- 
systems.  She  hinted  that  they  ought  to  have  (as  at  the 
committee-meetings  of  the  Thanatopsis)  a  "  regular  order  of 
business,"  and  "  the  reading  of  the  minutes,"  but  as  there 
were  no  minutes  to  read,  and  as  no  one  knew  exactly  what  was 
the  regular  order  of  the  business  of  being  literary,  they  had 
to  give  up  efficiency. 

Carol,  as  chairman,  said  politely,  "  Have  you  any  ideas  about 
what  play  we'd  better  give  first?  "  She  waited  for  them  to 
look  abashed  and  vacant,  so  that  she  might  suggest 
"  Androcles." 

Guy  Pollock  answered  with  disconcerting  readiness,  "I'll 
tell  you:  since  we're  going  to  try  to  do  something  artistic, 
and  not  simply  fool  around,  I  believe  we  ought  to  give  some 
thing  classic.  How  about  '  The  School  for  Scandal '  ?  " 

"Why Don't  you  think  that  has  been  done  a  good 

deal?  " 

"  Yes,  perhaps  it  has." 

Carol  was  ready  to  say,  "  How  about  Bernard  Shaw?  "  when 

217 


2i8  MAIN   STREET 

he  treacherously  went  on,  "  How  would  it  be  then  to  give  a 
Greek  drama — say  '  (Edipus  Tyrannus  '  ?  " 

"  Why,  I  don't  believe " 

Vida  Sherwin  intruded,  "  I'm  sure  that  would  be  too  hard 
for  us.  Now  I've  brought  something  that  I  think  would  be 
awfully  jolly." 

She  held  out,  and  Carol  incredulously  took,  a  thin  gray 
pamphlet  entitled  "  McGinerty's  Mother-in-law."  It  was  the 
sort  of  farce  which  is  advertised  in  "  school  entertainment " 
catalogues  as: 

Riproaring  knock-out,  5  m.  3  f.,  time  a  hrs.,  interior  set,  popular 
with  churches  and  all  high-class  occasions. 

Carol  glanced  from  the  scabrous  object  to  Vida,  and  realized 
that  she  was  not  joking. 

"  But  this  is— this  is— why,  it's  just  a Why,  Vida,  I 

thought  you  appreciated — well — appreciated  art." 

Vida  snorted,  "Oh.  Art.  Oh  yes.  I  do  like  art.  It's 
very  nice.  But  after  all,  what  does  it  matter  what  kind  of 
play  we  give  as  long  as  we  get  the  association  started?  The 
thing  that  matters  is  something  that  none  of  you  have  spoken 
of,  that  is:  what  are  we  going  to  do  with  the  money,  if  we 
make  any?  I  think  it  would  be  awfully  nice  if  we  presented 
the  high  school  with  a  full  set  of  Stoddard's  travel-lectures!  " 

Carol  moaned,  "  Oh,  but  Vida  dear,  do  forgive  me  but  this 
farce Now  what  I'd  like  us  to  give  is  something  dis 
tinguished.  Say  Shaw's  'Androcles.'  Have  any  of  you  read 
it?" 

"  Yes.  Good  play,"  said  Guy  Pollock. 

Then  Raymie  Wutherspoon  astoundingly  spoke  up: 

"  So  have  I.  I  read  through  all  the  plays  in  the  public 

library,  so's  to  be  ready  for  this  meeting.  And But  I 

don't  believe  you  grasp  the  irreligious  ideas  in  this  l  Androcles,' 
Mrs.  Kennicott.  I  guess  the  feminine  mind  is  too  innocent  to 
understand  all  these  immoral  writers.  I'm  sure  I  don't  want 
to  criticize  Bernard  Shaw;  I  understand  he  is  very  popular 

with  the  highbrows  in  Minneapolis ;  but  just  the  same As 

far  as  I  can  make  out,  he's  downright  improper!  The  things 

he  says Well,  it  would  be  a  very  risky  thing  for  our 

young  folks  to  see.  It  seems  to  me  that  a  play  that  doesn't 
leave  a  nice  taste  in  the  mouth  and  that  hasn't  any  message 
is  nothing  but — nothing  but Well,  whatever  it  may  be* 


MAIN    STREET  219 

it  isn't  art.  So Now  I've  found  a  play  that  is  clean,  and 

there's  some  awfully  funny  scenes  in  it,  too.  I  laughed  out 
loud,  reading  it.  It's  called  'His  Mother's  Heart,'  and  it's 
about  a  youn^  man  in  college  who  gets  in  with  a  lot  of  free* 
thinkers  and  boozers  and  everything,  but  in  the  end  his  mother's 
influence " 

Juanita  Haydock  broke  in  with  a  derisive,  "  Oh  rats,  Raymie! 
Can  the  mother's  influence!  I  say  let's  give  something  with 
some  class  to  it.  I  bet  we  could  get  the  rights  to  *  The  Girl 
from  Kankakee,'  and  that's  a  real  show.  It  ran  for  eleven 
months  in  New  York!  " 

"  That  would  be  lots  of  fun,  if  it  wouldn't  cost  too  much," 
reflected  Vida. 

Carol's  was  the  only  vote  cast  against  "  The  Girl  from 
Kankakee." 

ii 

She  disliked  "The  Girl  from  Kankakee"  even  more  than 
she  had  expected.  It  narrated  the  success  of  a  farm-lassie  in 
clearing  her  brother  of  a  charge  of  forgery.  She  became  secre 
tary  to  a  New  York  millionaire  and  social  counselor  to  his 
wife;  and  after  a  well-conceived  speech  on  the  discomfort  of 
having  money,  she  married  his  son. 

There  was  also  a  humorous  office-boy. 

Carol  discerned  that  both  Juanita  Haydock  and  Ella  Stow- 
body  wanted  the  lead.  She  let  Juanita  have  it.  Juanita  kissed 
her  and  in  the  exuberant  manner  of  a  new  star  presented  to 
the  executive  committee  her  theory,  "  What  we  want  in  a  play 
is  humor  and  pep.  There's  where  American  playwrights  put  it 
all  over  these  darn  old  European  glooms." 

As  selected  by  Carol  and  confirmed  by  the  committee,  the 
persons  of  the  play  were: 

John  Grimm,  a  millionaire     .       .       .  Guy  Pollock 

His  wife       . Miss   Via*   Sherwin 

His  son Dr.  Harvey  Dillon 

His  business  rival Raymond    T.    Wutherspoon 

Friend  of  Mrs.  Grimm  ....  Miss  Ella   Stowbody 

The  girl  from  Kankakee       .       .       .  Mrs.  Harold  C.  Haydock 

Her   brother Dr.   Terence   Gould 

Her  mother Mrs.  David  Dyer 

Stenographer Miss  Rita  Simons 

Office-boy Miss  Myrtle  Cass 

Maid  in  the  Grimms'  home  .       .       .  M,rs.  W.  P.  Kennicott 
Direction  of  Mrs.  Kennicott 


220  MAIN   STREET 

Among  the  minor  lamentations  was  Maud  Dye  r's  "  Well  of 
course  I  suppose  I  look  old  enough  to  be  Juan. 'la's  mother, 
even  if  Juanita  is  eight  months  older  than  I  am,  but  I  don't 
know  as  I  care  to  have  everybody  noticing  it  and " 

Carol  pleaded,  "  Oh,  my  dear!  You  two  look  exactly  the 
same  age.  I  chose  you  because  you  have  such  a  darling  com 
plexion,  and  you  know  with  powder  and  a  white  wig,  anybody 
looks  twice  her  age,  and  I  want  the  mother  to  be  sweet,  no 
matter  who  else  is." 

Ella  Stowbody,  the  professional,  perceiving  that  it  was  be 
cause  of  a  conspiracy  of  jealousy  that  she  had  been  given  a 
small  part,  alternated  between  lofty  amusement  and  Christian 
patience. 

Carol  hinted  that  the  play  would  be  improved  by  cutting, 
but  as  every  actor  except  Vida  and  Guy  and  herself  wailed 
at  the  loss  of  a  single  line,  she  was  defeated.  She  told  herself 
that,  after  all,  a  great  deal  could  be  done  with  direction  and 
settings. 

Sam  Clark  had  boastfully  written  about  the  dramatic  as 
sociation  to  his  schoolmate,  Percy  Bresnahan,  president  of  the 
Velvet  Motor  Company  of  Boston.  Bresnahan  sent  a  check 
for  a  hundred  dollars;  Sam  added  twenty-five  and  brought  the 
fund  to  Carol,  fondly  crying,  "  There!  That'll  give  you  a 
start  for  putting  the  thing  across  swell!  " 

She  rented  the  second  floor  of  the  city  hall  for  two  months. 
All  through  the  spring  the  association  thrilled  to  its  own  talent 
in  that  dismal  room.  They  cleared  out  the  bunting,  ballot- 
boxes,  handbills,  legless  chairs.  They  attacked  the  stage. 
It  was  a  simple-minded  stage.  It  was  raised  above  the  floor, 
and  it  did  have  a  movable  curtain,  painted  with  the  adver 
tisement  of  a  druggist  dead  these  ten  years,  but  otherwise  it 
might  not  have  been  recognized  as  a  stage.  There  were  two 
dressing-rooms,  one  for  men,  one  for  women,  on  either  side. 
The  dressing-room  doors  were  also  the  stage-entrances,  opening 
from  the  house,  and  many  a  citizen  of  Gopher  Prairie  had  for 
his  first  glimpse  of  romance  the  bare  shoulders  of  the  leading 
woman. 

There  were  three  sets  of  scenery:  a  woodland,  a  Poor  In 
terior,  and  a  Rich  Interior,  the  last  also  useful  for  railway 
stations,  offices,  and  as  a  background  for  the  Swedish  Quartette 
from  Chicago.  There  were  three  gradations  of  lighting:  full 
on,  half  on,  and  entirely  off. 


MAIN   STREET  221 

This  was  the  only  theater  in  Gopher  Prairie.  It  was  known 
as  the  "  op'ra  house."  Once,  strolling  companies  had  used 
it  for  performances  of  "  The  Two  Orphans,"  and  "  Nellie  the 
Beautiful  Cloak  Model,"  and  "  Othello  "  with  specialties  be 
tween  acts,  but  now  the  motion-pictures  had  ousted  the  gipsy 
drama. 

Carol  intended  to  be  furiously  modern  in  constructing  the 
office-set,  the  drawing-room  for  Mr.  Grimm,  and  the  Humble 
Home  near  Kankakee.  It  was  the  first  time  that  any  one  in 
Gopher  Prairie  had  been  so  revolutionary  as  to  use  enclosed 
scenes  with  continuous  side-walls.  The  rooms  in  the  op'ra  house 
sets  had  separate  wing-pieces  for  sides,  which  simplified  drama 
turgy,  as  the  villain  could  always  get  out  of  the  hero's  way  by 
walking  out  through  the  wall. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  Humble  Home  were  supposed  to  be 
amiable  and  intelligent.  Carol  planned  for  them  a  simple  set 
with  warm  color.  She  could  see  the  beginning  of  the  play: 
all  dark  save  the  high  settles  and  the  solid  wooden  table  be 
tween  them,  which  were  to  be  illuminated  by  a  ray  from  off 
stage.  The  high  light  was  a  polished  copper  pot  filled  with 
primroses.  Less  clearly  she  sketched  the  Grimm  drawing-room 
as  a  series  of  cool  high  white  arches. 

As  to  how  she  was  to  produce  these  effects  she  had  no 
notion. 

She  discovered  that,  despite  the  enthusiastic  young  writers, 
the  drama  was  not  half  so  native  and  close  to  the  soil  as  motor 
cars  and  telephones.  She  discovered  that  simple  arts  require 
sophisticated  training.  She  discovered  that  to  produce  one 
perfect  stage-picture  would  be  as  difficult  as  to  turn  all  of 
Gopher  Prairie  into  a  Georgian  garden. 

She  read  all  she  could  find  regarding  staging;  she  bought 
paint  and  light  wood;  she  borrowed  furniture  and  drapes  un 
scrupulously;  she  made  Kennicott  turn  carpenter.  She  col 
lided  with  the  problem  of  lighting.  Against  the  protest  of 
Kennicott  and  Vida  she  mortgaged  the  association  by  sending 
to  Minneapolis  for  a  baby  spotlight,  a  strip  light,  a  dimming 
device,  and  blue  and  amber  bulbs;  and  with  the  gloating  rap 
ture  of  a  born  painter  first  turned  loose  among  colors,  she 
spent  absorbed  evenings  in  grouping,  dimming — painting  with 
lights. 

Only  Kennicott,  Guy,  and  Vida  helped  her.  They  speculated 
as  to  how  flats  could  be  lashed  together  to  form  a  wall;  they 


222  MAIN    STREET 

hung  crocus-yellow  curtains  at  the  windows;  they  blacked  the 
sheet-iron  stove;  they  put  on  aprons  and  swept.  The  rest 
of  the  association  dropped  into  the  theater  every  evening,  and 
were  literary  and  superior.  They  had  borrowed  Carol's 
manuals  of  play-production  and  had  become  extremely  stagey 
in  vocabulary. 

Juanita  Haydock,  Rita  Simons,  and  Raymie  Wutherspoon 
sat  on  a  sawhorse,  watching  Carol  try  to  get  the  right  position 
for  a  picture  on  the  wall  in  the  first  scene. 

"  I  don't  want  to  hand  myself  anything  but  I  believe  III 
give  a  swell  performance  in  this  first  act,"  confided  Juanita. 
"  I  wish  Carol  wasn't  so  bossy  though.  She  doesn't  under*, 
stand  clothes.  I  want  to  wear,  oh,  a  dandy  dress  I  have — 
all  scarlet — and  I  said  to  her,  '  When  I  enter  wouldn't  it 
knock  their  eyes  out  if  I  just  stood  there  at  the  door  in  this 
straight  scarlet  thing?  '  But  she  wouldn't  let  me." 

Young  Rita  agreed,  "  She's  so  much  taken  up  with  her  old 
details  and  carpentering  and  everything  that  she  can't  see  the 
picture  as  a  whole.  Now  I  thought  it  would  be  lovely  if  we 
had  an  office-scene  like  the  one  in  '  Little,  But  Oh  My !  ' 
Because  I  saw  that,  in  Duluth.  But  she  simply  wouldn't  listen 
at  all." 

Juanita  sighed,  "I  wanted  to  give  one  speech  like  Ethel 
Barrymore  would,  if  she  was  in  a  play  like  this.  (Harry 
and  I  heard  her  one  time  in  Minneapolis — we  had  dandy  seats, 
in  the  orchestra — I  just  know  I  could  imitate  her.)  Carol 
didn't  pay  any  attention  to  my  suggestion.  I  don't  want  to 
criticize  but  I  guess  Ethel  knows  more  about  acting  than 
Carol  does!  " 

"  Say,  do  you  think  Carol  has  the  right  dope  about  using  a 
strip  light  behind  the  fireplace  in  the  second  act?  I  told 
her  I  thought  we  ought  to  use  a  bunch,"  offered  Raymie, 
"  And  I  suggested  it  would  be  lovely  if  we  used  a  cyclorama 
outside  the  window  in  the  first  act,  and  what  do  you  think 
she  said?  '  Yes,  and  it  would  be  lovely  to  have  Eleanora 
Duse  play  the  lead/  she  said,  *  and  aside  from  the  fact  that 
it's  evening  in  the  first  act,  you're  a  great  technician,'  she 
said.  I  must  say  I  think  she  was  pretty  sarcastic.  I've  been 
reading  up,  and  I  know  I  could  build  a  cyclorama,  if  she  didn't 
want  to  run  everything." 

"  Yes,  and  another  thing,  I  think  the  entrance  in  the  firsf 
act  ought  to  be  L.  U.  E.,  not  L.  3  E.,"  from  Juanita. 


MAIN   STREET  223 

"  And  why  does  she  just  use  plain  white  tormenters?  " 
"What's  a  tormenter?  "  blurted  Rita  Simons. 
The  savants  stared  at  her  ignorance. 


in 

Carol  did  not  resent  their  criticisms,  she  didn't  very  much 
resent  their  sudden  knowledge,  so  long  as  they  let  her  make 
pictures.  It  was  at  rehearsals  that  the  quarrrels  broke.  No 
one  understood  that  rehearsals  were  as  real  engagements  as 
bridge-games  or  sociables  at  the  Episcopal  Church.  They  gaily 
came  in  half  an  hour  late,  or  they  vociferously  came  in  ten 
minutes  early,  and  they  were  so  hurt  that  they  whispered 
about  resigning  when  Carol  protested.  They  telephoned,  "  I 
don't  think  I'd  better  come  out;  afraid  the  dampness  might 
start  my  toothache,"  or  "  Guess  can't  make  it  tonight;  Dave 
wants  me  to  sit  in  on  a  poker  game/' 

When,  after  a  month  of  labor,  as  many  as  nine-elevenths 
of  the  cast  were  often  present  at  a  rehearsal;  when  most  of 
them  had  learned  their  parts  and  some  of  them  spoke  like 
human  beings,  Carol  had  a  new  shock  in  the  realization  that 
Guy  Pollock  and  herself  were  very  bad  actors,  and  that 
Raymie  Wutherspoon  was  a  surprisingly  good  one.  For  all  her 
visions  she  could  not  control  her  voice,  and  she  was  bored  by 
the  fiftieth  repetition  of  her  few  lines  as  maid.  Guy  pulled 
his  soft  mustache,  looked  self-conscious,  and  turned  Mr.  Grimm 
into  a  limp  dummy.  But  Raymie,  as  the  villain,  had  no  repres 
sions.  The  tilt  of  his  head  was  full  of  character;  his  drawl 
was  admirably  vicious. 

There  was  an  evening  when  Carol  hoped  she  was  going  to 
make  a  play;  a  rehearsal  during  which  Guy  stopped  looking 
abashed. 

From  that  evening  the  play  declined. 

They  were  weary.  "  We  know  our  parts  well  enough  now; 
what's  the  use  of  getting  sick  of  them?  "  they  complained. 
They  began  to  skylark;  to  play  with  the  sacred  lights;  to 
giggle^when  Carol  was  trying  to  make  the  sentimental  Myrtle 
Cass  into  a  humorous  office-boy;  to  act  everything  but  "  The 
Girl  from  Kankakee."  After  loafing  through  his  proper  part 
Dr.  Terry  Gould  had  great  applause  for  his  burlesque  of 
"  Hamlet."  Even  Raymie  lost  his  simple  faith,  and  tried  to 
show  that  he  could  do  a  vaudeville  shuffle. 


224  MAIN   STREET 

Carol  turned  on  the  company.  "  See  here,  I  want  this  non 
sense  to  stop.  We've  simply  got  to  get  down  to  work." 

Juanita  Haydock  led  the  mutiny:  "  Look  here,  Carol,  don't 
be  so  bossy.  After  all,  we're  doing  this  play  principally 
for  the  fun  of  it,  and  if  we  have  fun  out  of  a  lot  of  monkey- 
shines,  why  then " 

"  Ye-es,"  feebly. 

"  You  said  one  time  that  folks  in  G.  P.  didn't  get  enough 
fun  out  of  life.  And  now  we  are  having  a  circus,  you  want 
us  to  stop!  " 

Carol  answered  slowly:  "  I  wonder  if  I  can  explain  what 
I  mean?  It's  the  difference  between  looking  at  the  comic 
page  and  looking  at  Manet.  I  want  fun  out  of  this,  of  course. 
Only I  don't  think  it  would  be  less  fun,  but  more,  to  pro 
duce  as  perfect  a  play  as  we  can."  She  was  curiously  exalted; 
her  voice  was  strained;  she  stared  not  at  the  company  but  at  the 
grotesques  scrawled  on  the  backs  of  wing-pieces  by  forgotten 
stage-hands.  "  I  wonder  if  you  can  understand  the  '  fun  '  of 
making  a  beautiful  thing,  the  pride  and  satisfaction  of  it,  and 
the  holiness!  " 

The  company  glanced  doubtfully  at  one  another.  In  Gopher 
Prairie  it  is  not  good  form  to  be  holy  except  at  a  church,  be 
tween  ten-thirty  and  twelve  on  Sunday. 

"  But  if  we  want  to  do  it,  we've  got  to  work;  we  must 
have  self-discipline." 

They  were  at  once  amused  and  embarrassed.  They  did  not 
want  to  affront  this  mad  woman.  They  backed  off  and  tried  to 
rehearse.  Carol  did  not  hear  Juanita,  in  front,  protesting  to 
Maud  Dyer,  "  If  she  calls  it  fun  and  holiness  to  sweat  over 
her  darned  old  play — well,  I  don't!  " 


IV 

Carol  attended  the  only  professional  play  which  came  to 
Gopher  Prairie  that  spring.  It  was  a  "  tent  show,  presenting 
snappy  new  dramas  under  canvas."  The  hard-working  actors 
doubled  in  brass,  and  took  tickets;  and  between  acts  sang 
about  the  moon  in  June,  and  sold  Dr.  Wintergreen's  Surefire 
Tonic  for  Ills  of  the  Heart,  Lungs,  Kidneys,  and  Bowels.  They 
presented  "  Sunbonnet  Nell:  A  Dramatic  Comedy  of  the 
Ozarks,"  with  J.  Witherbee  Boothby  wringing  the  soul  by 
his  resonant  "  Yuh  ain't  done  right  by  mah  little  gal,  Mr 


MAIN   STREET  225 

City  Man,  but  yer  a-goin'  to  find  that  back  in  these-yere  hills 
there's  honest  folks  and  good  shots!  " 

The  audience,  on  planks  beneath  the  patched  tent,  admired 
Mr.  Boothby's  beard  and  long  rifle;  stamped  their  feet  in 
the  dust  at  the  spectacle  of  his  heroism;  shouted  when  the 
comedian  aped  the  City  Lady's  use  of  a  lorgnon  by  looking 
through  a  doughnut  stuck  on  a  fork;  wept  visibly  over  Mr. 
Boothby's  Little  Gal  Nell,  who  was  also  Mr.  Boothby's  legal 
wife  Pearl,  and  when  the  curtain  went  down,  listened  respect 
fully  to  Mr.  Boothby's  lecture  on  Dr.  Wintergreen's  Tonic  as 
a  cure  for  tape-worms,  which  he  illustrated  by  horrible  pallid 
objects  curled  in  bottles  of  yellowing  alcohol. 

Carol  shook  her  head.  "Juanita  is  right.  I'm  a  fool. 
Holiness  of  the  drama!  Bernard  Shaw!  The  only  trouble 
with  'The  Girl  from  Kankakee'  is  that  it's  too  subtle  for 
Gopher  Prairie!  " 

She  sought  faith  in  spacious  banal  phrases,  taken  from  books: 
"the  instinctive  nobility  of  simple  souls,"  "need  only  the 
opportunity,  to  appreciate  fine  things,"  and  "  sturdy  exponents 
of  democracy."  But  these  optimisms  did  not  sound  so  loud 
as  the  laughter  of  the  audience  at  the  funny-man's  line,  "  Yes, 
by  heckelum,  I'm  a  smart  fella."  She  wanted  to  give  up  the 
play,  the  dramatic  association,  the  town.  As  she  came  out  of 
the  tent  and  walked  with  Kennicott  down  the  dusty  spring 
street,  she  peered  at  this  straggling  wooden  village  and  felt 
that  she  could  not  possibly  stay  here  through  all  of  tomorrow. 

It  was  Miles  Bjornstam  who  gave  her  strength — he  and  the 
fact  that  every  seat  for  "  The  Girl  from  Kankakee  "  had  been 
sold. 

Bjornstam  was  "  keeping  company  "  with  Bea.  Every  night 
he  was  sitting  on  the  back  steps.  Once  when  Carol  appeared 
he  grumbled,  "  Hope  you're  going  to  give  this  burg  one  good 
show.  If  you  don't,  reckon  nobody  ever  will," 


It  was  the  great  night;  it  was  the  night  of  the  play.  The 
two  dressing-rejoins  were  swirling  with  actors,  panting,  twitchy, 
pale.  Del  Snafflin  the  barber,  who  was  as  much  a  professional 
as  Ella,  having  once  gone  on  in  a  mob  scene  at  a  stock- 
company  performance  in  Minneapolis,  was  making  them  up, 
and  showing  his  scorn  for  amateurs  with,  "  Stand  still!  For 


226  MAIN   STREET 

the  love  o'  Mike,  how  do  you  expect  me  to  get  your  eyelids 
dark  if  you  keep  a-wigglin'?  "  The  actors  were  beseeching, 
"  Hey,  Del,  put  some  red  in  my  nostrils — you  put  some  in 
Rita's — gee,  you  didn't  hardly  do  anything  to  my  face." 

They  were  enormously  theatric.  They  examined  Del's  make 
up  box,  they  sniffed  the  scent  of  grease-paint,  every  minute 
they  ran  out  to  peep  through  the  hole  in  the  curtain,  they 
came  back  to  inspect  their  wigs  and  costumes,  they  read  on 
the  whitewashed  walls  of  the  dressing-rooms  the  pencil  in 
scriptions:  "The  Flora  Flanders  Comedy  Company,"  and 
"  This  is  a  bum  theater,"  and  felt  that  they  were  companions 
of  these  vanished  troupers. 

Carol,  smart  in  maid's  uniform,  coaxed  the  temporary  stage 
hands  to  finish  setting  the  first  act,  wailed  at  Kennicott,  the 
electrician,  "  Now  for  heaven's  sake  remember  the  change  in 
cue  for  the  ambers  in  Act  Two,"  slipped  out  to  ask  Dave  Dyer, 
the  ticket-taker,  if  he  could  get  some  more  chairs,  warned  the 
frightened  Myrtle  Cass  to  be  sure  to  upset  the  waste-basket 
when  John  Grimm  called,  "  Here  you,  Reddy." 

Del  Snafflin's  orchestra  of  piano,  violin,  and  cornet  began  to 
tune  up  and  every  one  behind  the  magic  line  of  the  proscenic 
arch  was  frightened  into  paralysis.  Carol  wavered  to  the 
hole  in  the  curtain.  There  were  so  many  people  out  there, 
staring  so  hard 

In  the  second  row  she  saw  Miles  Bjornstam,  not  with  Bea 
but  alone.  He  really  wanted  to  see  the  play!  It  was  a  good 
omen.  Who  could  tell?  Perhaps  this  evening  would  convert 
Gopher  Prairie  to  conscious  beauty. 

She  darted  into  the  women's  dressing-room,  roused  Maud 
Dyer  from  her  fainting  panic,  pushed  her  to  the  wings,  and 
ordered  the  curtain  up. 

It  rose  doubtfully,  it  staggered  and  trembled,  but  it  did  get 
up  without  catching — this  time.  Then  she  realized  that 
Kennicott  had  forgotten  to  turn  off  the  houselights.  Some 
one  out  front  was  giggling. 

She  galloped  round  to  the  left  wing,  herself  pulled  the 
switch,  looked  so  ferociously  at  Kennicott  that  he  quaked, 
and  fled  back. 

Mrs.  Dyer  was  creeping  out  on  the  half-darkened  stage. 
The  play  was  begun. 

And  with  that  instant  Carol  realized  that  it  was  a  bad  play 
abominably  acted. 


MAIN   STREET  227 

Encouraging  them  with  lying  smiles,  she  watched  her  work 
go  to  pieces.  The  settings  seemed  flimsy,  the  lighting  com 
monplace.  She  watched  Guy  Pollock  stammer  and  twist  his 
mustache  when  he  should  have  been  a  bullying  magnate;  Vida 
Sherwin,  as  Grimm's  timid  wife,  chatter  at  the  audience  as 
though  they  were  her  class  in  high-school  English;  Juanita, 
in  the  leading  role,  defy  Mr,  Grimm  as  though  she  were  re 
peating  a  list  of  things  she  had  to  buy  at  the  grocery  this 
morning;  Ella  Stowbody  remark  "  I'd  like  a  cup  of  tea  "  as 
though  she  were  reciting  "  Curfew  Shall  Not  Ring  Tonight "; 
and  Dr.  Gould,  making  love  to  Rita  Simons,  squeak,  "  My — 
my — you — are — a — won'erful — girl." 

Myrtle  Cass,  as  the  office-boy,  was  so  much  pleased  by  the 
applause  of  her  relatives,  then  so  much  agitated  by  the  re 
marks  of  Cy  Bogart,  in  the  back  row,  in  reference  to  her 
wearing  trousers,  that  she  could  hardly  be  got  off  the  stage. 
Only  Raymie  was  so  unsociable  as  to  devote  himself  entirely 
to  acting. 

That  she  was  right  in  her  opinion  of  the  play  Carol  was 
certain  when  Miles  Bjornstam  went  out  after  the  first  act, 
and  did  not  come  back. 


VI 

Between  the  second  and  third  acts  she  called  the  company 
together,  and  supplicated,  "  I  want  to  know  something,  before 
we  have  a  chance  to  separate.  Whether  we're  doing  well  or 
badly  tonight,  it  is  a  beginning.  But  will  we  take  it  as  merely 
a  beginning?  How  many  of  you  will  pledge  yourselves  to 
start  in  with  me,  right  away,  tomorrow,  and  plan  for  another 
play,  to  be  given  in  September?  " 

They  stared  at  her;  they  nodded  at  Juanita's  protest:  "I 
think  one's  enough  for  a  while.  It's  going  elegant  tonight,  but 

another  play Seems  to  me  it'll  be  time  enough  to  talk 

about  that  next  fall.  Carol!  I  hope  you  don't  mean  to  hint 
and  suggest  we're  not  doing  fine  tonight?  I'm  sure  the  ap 
plause  shows  the  audience  think  it's  just  dandy!  " 

Then  Carol  knew  how  completely  she  had  failed. 

As  the  audience  seeped  out  she  heard  B.  J.  Gougerling  the 
banker  say  to  Rowland  the  grocer,  "  Well,  I  think  the  folks 
did  splendid;  just  as  good  as  professionals.  But  I  don't  care 
much  for  these  plays.  What  1  like  is  a  good  movie,  with 


228  MAIN   STREET 

auto  accidents  and  hold-ups,  and  some  git  to  it,  and  not  all 
this  talky-talk." 

Then  Carol  knew  how  certain  she  was  to  fail  again. 

She  wearily  did  not  blame  them,  company  nor  audience. 
Herself  she  blamed  for  trying  to  carve  intaglios  in  good  whole 
some  jack-pine. 

"  It's  the  worst  defeat  of  all.  I'm  beaten.  By  Main  Street. 
'  I  must  go  on.7  But  I  can't!  " 

She  was  not  vastly  encouraged  by  the  Gopher  Prairie 
Dauntless'. 

.  .  .  would  be  impossible  to  distinguish  among  the  actors  when 
all  gave  such  fine  account  of  themselves  in  difficult  roles  of  this 
well-known  New  York  stage  play.  Guy  Pollock  as  the  old  mil 
lionaire  could  not  have  been  bettered  for  his  fine  impersonation  of 
the  gruff  old  millionaire;  Mrs.  Harry  Haydock  as  the  young  lady 
from  the  West  who  so  easily  showed  the  New  York  four-flushers 
where  they  got  off  was  a  vision  of  loveliness  and  with  fine  stage 
presence.  Miss  Vida  Sherwin  the  ever  popular  teacher  in  our 
high  school  pleased  as  Mrs.  Grimm,  Dr.  Gould  was  well  suited  in 
the  role  of  young  lover — girls  you  better  look  out,  remember  the 
doc  is  a  bachelor.  The  local  Four  Hundred  also  report  that  he 
is  a  great  hand  at  shaking  the  light  fantastic  tootsies  in  the 
dance.  As  the  stenographer  Rita  Simons  was  pretty  as  a  picture, 
and  Miss  Ella  Stowbody's  long  and  intensive  study  of  the  drama 
and  kindred  arts  in  Eastern  schools  was  seen  in  the  fine  finish 
of  her  part. 

.  .  .  to  no  one  is  greater  credit  to  be  given  than  to  Mrs.  Will 
Kennicott  on  whose  capable  shoulders  fell  the  burden  of  directing. 

"  So  kindly,"  Carol  mused,  "  so  well  meant,  so  neighborly — 
and  so  confoundedly  untrue.  Is  it  really  my  failure,  or 
theirs?  " 

She  sought  to  be  sensible;  she  elaborately  explained  to  her 
self  that  it  was  hysterical  to  condemn  Gopher  Prairie  because 
it  did  not  foam  over  the  drama.  Its  justification  was  in  its 
service  as  a  market- town  for  farmers.  How  bravely  and  gener 
ously  it  did  its  work,  forwarding  the  bread  of  the  world,  feeding 
and  healing  the  farmers! 

Then,  on  the  corner  below  her  husband's  office,  she  heard 
a  farmer  holding  forth: 

"  Sure.  Course  I  was  beaten.  The  shipper  and  the  grocers 
here  wouldn't  pay  us  a  decent  price  for  our  potatoes,  even 
though  folks  in  the  cities  were  howling  for  'em.  So  we  says, 
well,  we'll  get  a  truck  and  ship  'em  right  down  to  Minneapolis. 
,But  the  commission  merchants  there  were  in  cahoots  with  the 


MAIN   STREET  229 

local  shipper  here;  they  said  they  wouldn't  pay  us  a  cent 
more  than  he  would,  not  even  if  they  was  nearer  to  the 
market.  Well,  we  found  we  could  get  higher  prices  in  Chicago, 
but  when  we  tried  to  get  freight  cars  to  ship  there,  the  rail 
roads  wouldn't  let  us  have  'em — even  though  they  had  cars 
standing  empty  right  here  in  the  yards.  There  you  got  it — 
good  market,  and  these  towns  keeping  us  from  it.  Gus,  that's 
the  way  these  towns  work  all  the  time.  They  pay  what  they 
want  to  for  our  wheat,  but  we  pay  what  they  want  us  to 
for  their  clothes.  Stowbody  and  Dawson  foreclose  every  mort 
gage  they  can,  and  put  in  tenant  farmers.  The  Dauntless  lies 
to  us  about  the  Nonpartisan  League,  the  lawyers  sting  us, 
the  machinery-dealers  hate  to  carry  us  over  bad  years,  and 
then  their  daughters  put  on  swell  dresses  and  look  at  us  as 
if  we  were  a  bunch  of  hoboes.  Man,  I'd  like  to  burn  this 
town!  " 

Kennicott  observed,  "  There's  that  old  crank  Wes  Brannigan 
shooting  off  his  mouth  again.  Gosh,  but  he  loves  to  hear  him 
self  talk!  They  ought  to  run  that  fellow  out  of  town!  " 

vn 

She  felt  old  and  detached  through  high-school  commence 
ment  week,  which  is  the  fete  of  youth  in  Gopher  Prairie; 
through  baccalaureate  sermon,  senior  parade,  junior  entertain 
ment,  commencement  address  by  an  Iowa  clergyman  who 
asserted  that  he  believed  in  the  virtue  of  virtuousness,  and 
the  procession  of  Decoration  Day,  when  the  few  Civil  War 
veterans  followed  Champ  Perry,  in  his  rusty  forage-cap,  along 
the  spring-powdered  road  to  the  cemetery.  She  met  Guy;  she 
found  that  she  had  nothing  to  say  to  him.  Her  head  ached 
in  an  aimless  way.  When  Kennicott  rejoiced,  "  We'll  have  a 
great  time  this  summer,  move  down  to  the  lake  early  and 
wear  old  clothes  and  act  natural,"  she  smiled,  but  her  smile 
creaked. 

In  the  prairie  heat  she  trudged  along  unchanging  ways, 
talked  about  nothing  to  tepid  people,  and  reflected  that  she 
might  never  escape  from  them. 

She  was  startled  to  find  that  she  was  using  the  word 
"  escape." 

Then,  for  three  years  which  passed  like  one  curt  paragraph, 
she  ceased  to  find  anything  interesting  save  the  Bjornstams 
and  her  baby, 


CHAPTER  XIX 
i 

IN  three  years  of  exile  from  herself  Carol  had  certain  ex 
periences  chronicled  as  important  by  the  Dauntless,  or  discussed 
by  the  Jolly  Seventeen,  but  the  event  unchronicled,  undiscussed, 
and  supremely  controlling,  was  her  slow  admission  of  longing 
to  find  her  own  people. 


Bea  and  Miles  Bjornstam  were  married  in  June,  a  month 
after  "  The  Girl  from  Kankakee."  Miles  had  turned  respect 
able.  He  had  renounced  his  criticisms  of  state  and  society; 
he  had  given  up  roving  as  horse-trader,  and  wearing  red 
mackinaws  in  lumber-camps;  he  had  gone  to  work  as  engineer 
in  Jackson  Elder's  planing-mill ;  he  was  to  be  seen  upon  the 
streets  endeavoring  to  be  neighborly  with  suspicious  men  whom 
he  had  taunted  for  years. 

Carol  was  the  patroness  and  manager  of  the  wedding.  Jua- 
nita  Haydock  mocked,  "  You're  a  chump  to  let  a  good  hired 
girl  like  Bea  go.  Besides!  How  do  you  know  it's  a  good 
thing,  her  marrying  a  sassy  bum  like  this  awful  Red  Swede 
person?  Get  wise!  Chase  the  man  off  with  a  mop,  and  hold 
onto  your  Svenska  while  the  holding's  good.  Huh?  Me  go  to 
their  Scandahoofian  wedding?  Not  a  chance!  " 

The  other  matrons  echoed  Juanita.  Carol  was  dismayed  by 
the  casualness  of  their  cruelty,  but  she  persisted.  Miles  had 
exclaimed  to  her,  "  Jack  Elder  says  maybe  he'll  come  to  the 
wedding!  Gee,  it  would  be  nice  to  have  Bea  meet  the  Boss 
as  a  reg'lar  married  lady.  Some  day  I'll  be  so  well  off  that 
Bea  can  play  with  Mrs.  Elder — and  you!  Watch  us!  " 

There  was  an  uneasy  knot  of  only  nine  guests  at  the  service 
in  the  unpainted  Lutheran  Church — Carol,  Kennicott,  Guy 
Pollock,  and  the  Champ  Perrys,  all  brought  by  Carol;  Bea's 
frightened  rustic  parents,  her  cousin  Tina,  and  Pete,  Miles's 
ex-partner  in  horse-trading,  a  surly,  hairy  man  who  had  bought 

230 


MAIN   STREET  231 

a  black  suit  and  come  twelve  hundred  miles  from  Spokane  for 
the  event. 

Miles  continuously  glanced  back  at  the  church  door.  Jack 
son  Elder  did  not  appear.  The  door  did  not  once  open  after 
the  awkward  entrance  of  the  first  guests.  Miles's  hand  closed 
on  Bea's  arm. 

He  had,  with  Carol's  help,  made  his  shanty  over  into  a 
cottage  with  white  curtains  and  a  canary  and  a  chintz  chair. 

Carol  coaxed  the  powerful  matrons  to  call  on  Bea.  They 
half  scoffed,  half  promised  to  go. 

Bea's  successor  was  the  oldish,  broad,  silent  Oscarina,  who 
was  suspicious  of  her  frivolous  mistress  for  a  month,  so  that 
Juanita  Haydock  was  able  to  crow,  "  There,  smarty,  I  told  you 
you'd  run  into  the  Domestic  Problem!  "  But  Oscarina  adopted 
Carol  as  a  daughter,  and  with  her  as  faithful  to  the  kitchen  as 
Bea  had  been,  there  was  nothing  changed  in  Carol's  life. 


rn 

She  was  unexpectedly  appointed  to  the  town  library-board 
by  Ole  Jenson,  the  new  mayor.  The  other  members  were 
Dr.  Westlake,  Lyman  Cass,  Julius  Flickerbaugh  the  attorney, 
Guy  Pollock,  and  Martin  Mahoney,  former  livery-stable  keeper 
and  now  owner  of  a  garage.  She  was  delighted.  She  went  to 
the  first  meeting  rather  condescendingly,  regarding  herself  as 
the  only  one  besides  Guy  who  knew  anything  about  books 
or  library  methods.  She  was  planning  to  revolutionize  the 
whole  system. 

Her  condescension  was  ruined  and  her  humility  wholesomely 
increased  when  she  found  the  board,  in  the  shabby  room  on  the 
second  floor  of  the  house  which  had  been  converted  into  the 
library,  not  discussing  the  weather  and  longing  to  play  check 
ers,  but  talking  about  books.  She  discovered  that  amiable  old 
Dr.  Westlake  read  everything  in  verse  and  "light  fiction"; 
that  Lyman  Cass,  the  veal-faced,  bristly-bearded  owner  of  the 
mill,  had  tramped  through  Gibbon,  Hume,  Grote,  Prescott, 
and  the  other  thick  historians;  that  he  could  repeat  pages 
from  them — and  did.  When  Dr.  Westlake  whispered  to  her, 
"  Yes,  Lym  is  a  very  well-informed  man,  but  he's  modest  about 
it,"  she  felt  uninformed  and  immodest,  and  scolded  at  her 
self  that  she  had  missed  the  human  potentialities  in  this  vast 
Gopher  Prairie.  When  Dr.  Westlake  quoted  the  "  Paradise/' 


232  MAIN   STREET 

"Don  Quixote,"  "Wilhelm  Meister,"  and  the  Koran,  she 
reflected  that  no  one  she  knew,  not  even  her  father,  had  read 
all  four. 

She  came  diffidently  to  the  second  meeting  of  the  board.  She 
did  not  plan  to  revolutionize  anything.  She  hoped  that  the 
wise  elders  might  be  so  tolerant  as  to  listen  to  her  suggestions 
about  changing  the  shelving  of  the  juveniles. 

Yet  after  four  sessions  of  the  library-board  she  was  where 
she  had  been  before  the  first  session.  She  had  found  that  for 
all  their  pride  in  being  reading  men,  Westlake  and  Cass  and 
even  Guy  had  no  conception  of  making  the  library  familiar 
to  the  whole  town.  They  used  it,  they  passed  resolutions 
about  it,  and  they  left  it  as  dead  as  Moses.  Only  the  Henty 
books  and  the  Elsie  books  and  the  latest  optimisms  by  moral 
female  novelists  and  virile  clergymen  were  in  general  demand, 
and  the  board  themselves  were  interested  only  in  old,  stilted 
volumes.  They  had  no  tenderness  for  the  noisiness  of  youth 
discovering  great  literature. 

If  she  was  egotistic  about  her  tiny  learning,  they  were  at 
least  as  much  so  regarding  theirs.  And  for  all  their  talk  of 
the  need  of  additional  library-tax  none  of  them  was  willing 
to  risk  censure  by  battling  for  it,  though  they  now  had  so 
small  a  fund  that,  after  paying  for  rent,  heat,  light,  and  Miss 
Villets's  salary,  they  had  only  a  hundred  dollars  a  year  for  the 
purchase  of  books. 

The  Incident  of  the  Seventeen  Cents  killed  her  none  too  en 
during  interest. 

She  had  come  to  the  board-meeting  singing  with  a  plan. 
She  had  made  a  list  of  thirty  European  novels  of  the  past  ten 
years,  with  twenty  important  books  on  psychology,  education, 
and  economics  which  the  library  lacked.  She  had  made 
Kennicott  promise  to  give  fifteen  dollars.  If  each  of  the 
board  would  contribute  the  same,  they  could  have  the  books. 

Lym  Cass  looked  alarmed,  scratched  himself,  and  protested, 
"  I  think  it  would  be  a  bad  precedent  for  the  board-members 
to  contribute  money — uh — not  that  I  mind,  but  it  wouldn't  be 
fair — establish  precedent.  Gracious!  They  don't  pay  us  a 
cent  for  our  services!  Certainly  can't  expect  us  to  pay  for  the 
privilege  of  serving!  " 

Only  Guy  looked  sympathetic,  and  he  stroked  the  pine  table 
and  said  nothing. 

The  rest  of  the  meeting  they  gave  to  a  bellicose  investigation 


MAIN   STREET  233 

of  the  fact  that  there  was  seventeen  cents  less  than  there  should 
be  in  the  Fund.  Miss  Villets  was  summoned;  she  spent  half 
an  hour  in  explosively  defending  herself;  the  seventeen  cents 
were  gnawed  over,  penny  by  penny;  and  Carol,  glancing  at 
the  carefully  inscribed  list  which  had  been  so  lovely  and  excit 
ing  an  hour  before,  was  silent,  and  sorry  for  Miss  Villets,  and 
sorrier  for  herself. 

She  was  reasonably  regular  in  attendance  till  her  two  years 
were  up  and  Vida  Sherwin  was  appointed  to  the  board  in  her 
place,  but  she  did  not  try  to  be  revolutionary.  In  the  plod 
ding  course  of  her  life  there  was  nothing  changed,  and  nothing 
new. 

IV 

Kennicott  made  an  excellent  land-deal,  but  as  he  told  her 
none  of  the  details,  she  was  not  greatly  exalted  or  agitated. 
What  did  agitate  her  was  his  announcement,  half  whispered  and 
half  blurted,  half  tender  and  half  coldly  medical,  that  they 
"  ought  to  have  a  baby,  now  they  could  afford  it."  They  had 
so  long  agreed  that  "  perhaps  it  would  be  just  as  well  not  to 
have  any  children  for  a  while  yet,"  that  childlessness  had  come 
to  be  natural.  Now,  she  feared  and  longed  and  did  not  know; 
she  hesitatingly  assented,  and  wished  that  she  had  not  assented. 

As  there  appeared  no  change  in  their  drowsy  relations,  she 
forgot  all  about  it,  and  life  was  planless. 


Idling  on  the  porch  of  their  summer  cottage  at  the  lake, 
on  afternoons  when  Kennicott  was  in  town,  when  the  water 
was  glazed  and  the  whole  air  languid,  she  pictured  a  hundred 
escapes:  Fifth  Avenue  in  a  snow-storm,  with  limousines, 
golden  shops,  a  cathedral  spire.  A  reed  hut  on  fantastic  piles 
above  the  mud  of  a  jungle  river.  A  suite  in  Paris,  immense 
high  grave  rooms,  with  lambrequins  and  a  balcony.  The  En 
chanted  Mesa.  An  ancient  stone  mill  in  Maryland,  at  the  turn 
of  the  road,  between  rocky  brook  and  abrupt  hills.  An  upland 
moor  of  sheep  and  flitting  cool  sunlight.  A  clanging  dock  where 
steel  cranes  unloaded  steamers  from  Buenos  Ayres  and  Tsing- 
tao.  A  Munich  concert-hall,  and  a  famous  'cellist  playing — 
playing  to  her. 

One  scene  had  a  persistent  witchery: 


234  MAIN   STREET 

She  stood  on  a  terrace  overlooking  a  boulevard  by  the  warm 
sea.  She  was  certain,  though  she  had  no  reason  for  it,  that  the 
place  was  Mentone.  Along  the  drive  below  her  swept  barouches, 
with  a  mechanical  tlot-tlot,  tlot-tlot,  tlot-tlot,  and  great  cars 
with  polished  black  hoods  and  engines  quiet  as  the  sigh  of  an 
old  man.  In  them  were  women  erect,  slender,  enameled,  and 
expressionless  as  marionettes,  their  small  hands  upon  parasols, 
their  unchanging  eyes  always  forward,  ignoring  the  men  beside 
them,  tall  men  with  gray  hair  and  distinguished  faces.  Be 
yond  the  drive  were  painted  sea  and  painted  sands,  and  blue 
and  yellow  pavilions.  Nothing  moved  except  the  gliding  car 
riages,  and  the  people  were  small  and  wooden,  spots  in  a 
picture  drenched  with  gold  and  hard  bright  blues.  There  was 
no  sound  of  sea  or  winds;  no  softness  of  whispers  nor  of  fall 
ing  petals;  nothing  but  yellow  and  cobalt  and  staring  light, 
and  the  never-changing  tlot-tlot,  tlot-tlot 

She  startled.  She  whimpered.  It  was  the  rapid  ticking  oC 
the  clock  which  had  hypnotized  her  into  hearing  the  steady 
hoofs.  No  aching  color  of  the  sea  and  pride  of  supercilious 
people,  but  the  reality  of  a  round-bellied  nickel  alarm-clock  on 
a  shelf  against  a  fuzzy  unplaned  pine  wall,  with  a  stiff 
gray  wash-rag  hanging  above  it  and  a  kerosene-stove  standing 
below. 

A  thousand  dreams  governed  by  the  fiction  she  had  read, 
drawn  from  the  pictures  she  had  envied,  absorbed  her  drowsy 
lake  afternoons,  but  always  in  the  midst  of  them  Kennicott 
came  out  from  town,  drew  on  khaki  trousers  which  were 
plastered  with  dry  fish-scales,  asked,  "  Enjoying  yourself?  " 
and  did  not  listen  to  her  answer. 

And  nothing  was  changed,  and  there  was  no  reason  to  believe 
that  there  ever  would  be  change. 


VI 

Trains! 

At  the  lake  cottage  she  missed  the  passing  of  the  trains.  She 
realized  that  in  town  she  had  depended  upon  them  for  as 
surance  that  there  remained  a  world  beyond. 

The  railroad  was  more  than  a  means  of  transportation  to 
Gopher  Prairie.  It  was  a  new  god;  a  monster  of  steel  limbs, 
oak  ribs,  flesh  of  gravel,  and  a  stupendous  hunger  for  freight; 
a  deity  created  by  man  that  he  might  keeo  himself  resoectful  to 


MAIN   STREET  235 

Property,  as  elsewhere  he  had  elevated  anc1  served  as  tribal 
gods  the  mines,  cotton-mills,  motor-factories,  colleges,  army. 

The  East  remembered  generations  when  there  had  been  no 
railroad,  and  had  no  awe  of  it;  but  here  the  railroads  had 
been  before  time  was.  The  towns  had  been  staked  out  on  barren 
prairie  as  convenient  points  for  future  train-halts;  and  back 
in  1860  and  1870  there  had  been  much  profit,  much  opportunity 
to  found  aristocratic  families,,  in  the  possession  of  advance 
knowledge  as  to  where  the  towns  would  arise. 

If  a  town  was  in  disfavor,  the  railroad  could  ignore  it,  cut 
it  off  from  commerce,  sky  it.  To  Gopher  Prairie  the 
tracks  were  eternal  verities,  and  boards  of  railroad  directors 
an  omnipotence.  The  smallest  boy  or  the  most  secluded 
grandam  could  tell  you  whether  No.  32  had  a  hot-box  last 
Tuesday,  whether  No.  7  was  going  to  put  on  an  extra  day- 
coach;  and  the  name  of  the  president  of  the  road  was  familiar 
to  every  breakfast  table. 

Even  in  this  new  era  of  motors  the  citizens  went  down  to 
the  station  to  see  the  trains  go  through.  It  was  their  ro 
mance;  their  only  mystery  besides  mass  at  the  Catholic 
Church;  and  from  the  trains  came  lords  of  the  outer  world — 
traveling  salesmen  with  piping  on  their  waistcoats,  and  visit 
ing  cousins  from  Milwaukee. 

Gopher  Prairie  had  once  been  a  "  division-point."  The 
roundhouse  and  repair-shops  were  gone,  but  two  conductors 
still  retained  residence,  and  they  were  persons  of  distinction, 
men  who  traveled  and  talked  to  strangers,  who  wore  uniforms 
with  brass  buttons,  and  knew  all  about  these  crooked  games 
of  con-men.  They  were  a  special  caste,  neither  above  nor  below 
the  Hay  docks,  but  apart,  artists  and  adventurers. 

The  night  telegraph-operator  at  the  railroad  station  was  the 
most  melodramatic  figure  in  town:  awake  at  three  in  the 
morning,  alone  in  a  room  hectic  with  clatter  of  the  telegraph 
key.  All  night  he  "  talked  "  to  operators  twenty,  fifty,  a  hun 
dred  miles  away.  It  was  always  to  be  expected  that  he  would 
be  held  up  by  robbers.  He  never  was,  but  round  him  was  a 
suggestion  of  masked  faces  at  the  window,  revolvers,  cords 
binding  him  to  a  chair,  his  struggle  to  crawl  to  the  key  before 
he  fainted. 

During  blizzards  everything  about  the  railroad  was  melo 
dramatic.  There  were  days  when  the  town  was  completely 
shut  off,  when  they  had  no  mail,  no  express,  no  fresh  meat, 


236  MAIN   STREET 

no  newspapers.  At  last  the  rotary  snow-plow  came  through, 
bucking  the  drifts,  sending  up  a  geyser,  and  the  way  to  the 
Outside  was  open  again.  The  brakemen,  in  mufflers  and  fur 
caps,  running  along  the  tops  of  ice-coated  freight-cars;  the 
engineers  scratching  frost  from  the  cab  windows  and  looking 
out,  inscrutable,  self-contained,  pilots  of  the  prairie  sea — they 
were  heroism,  they  were  to  Carol  the  daring  of  the  quest  in  a 
world  of  groceries  and  sermons. 

To  the  small  boys  the  railroad  was  a  familiar  playground. 
They  climbed  the  iron  ladders  on  the  sides  of  the  box-cars; 
built  fires  behind  piles  of  old  ties;  waved  to  favorite  brake 
men.    But  to  Carol  it  was  magic. 

She  was  motoring  with  Kennicott,  the  car  lumping  through 
darkness,  the  lights  showing  mud-puddles  and  ragged  weeds 
by  the  road.  A  train  coming!  A  rapid  chuck-a-chuck,  chuck- 
a-chuck,  chuck-a-chuck.  It  was  hurling  past — the  Pacific 
Flyer,  an  arrow  of  golden  flame.  Light  from  the  fire-box 
splashed  the  under  side  of  the  trailing  smoke.  Instantly  the 
vision  was  gone;  Carol  was  back  in  the  long  darkness;  and 
Kennicott  was  giving  his  version  of  that  fire  and  wonder: 
"No.  19.  Must  be  'bout  ten  minutes  late." 

In  town,  she  listened  from  bed  to  the  express  whistling  in 
the  cut  a  mile  north.  Uuuuuuu! — faint,  nervous,  distrait, 
horn  of  the  free  night  riders  journeying  to  the  tall  towns  where 
were  laughter  and  banners  and  the  sound  of  bells — Uuuuu! 
Uuuuu! — the  world  going  by — Uuuuuuu! — fainter,  more  wist 
ful,  gone. 

Down  here  there  were  no  trains.  The  stillness  was  very 
great.  The  prairie  encircled  the  lake,  lay  round  her,  raw, 
dusty,  thick.  Only  the  train  could  cut  it.  Some  day  she  would 
take  a  train;  and  that  would  be  a  great  taking. 


vn 

She  turned  to  the  Chautauqua  as  she  had  turned  to  the 
dramatic  association,  to  the  library-board. 

Besides  the  permanent  Mother  Chautauqua,  in  New  York, 
there  are,  all  over  these  States,  commercial  Chautauqua  com 
panies  which  send  out  to  every  smallest  town  troupes  of 
lecturers  and  "  entertainers  "  to  give  a  week  of  culture  under 
canvas.  Living  in  Minneapolis,  Carol  had  never  encountered 
the  ambulant  Chautauqua,,  and  the  announcement  of  its  com- 


MAIN   STREET  237 

ing  to  Gopher  Prairie  gave  her  hope  that  others  might  be 
doing  the  vague  things  which  she  had  attempted.  She  pic 
tured  a  condensed  university  course  brought  to  the  people. 
Mornings  when  she  came  in  from  the  lake  with  Kennicott  she 
saw  placards  in  every  shop-window,  and  strung  on  a  cord 
across  Main  Street,  a  line  of  pennants  alternately  worded 
"The  Boland  Chautauqua  COMING!  "  and  "A  solid  week 
of  inspiration  and  enjoyment!  "  But  she  was  disappointed 
when  she  saw  the  program.  It  did  not  seem  to  be  a  tabloid 
university;  it  did  not  seem  to  be  any  kind  of  a  university;  it 
seemed  to  be  a  combination  of  vaudeville  performance,  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  lecture,  and  the  graduation  exercises  of  an  elocution 
class. 

She  took  her  doubt  to  Kennicott.  He  insisted, "  Well,  maybe 
it  won't  be  so  awful  darn  intellectual,  the  way  you  and  I 
might  like  it,  but  it's  a  whole  lot  better  than  nothing."  Vida 
Sherwin  added,  "  They  have  some  splendid  speakers.  If  the 
people  don't  carry  off  so  much  actual  information,  they  do  get 
a  lot  of  new  ideas,  and  that's  what  counts." 

During  the  Chautauqua  Carol  attended  three  evening  meet 
ings,  two  afternoon  meetings,  and  one  in  the  morning.  She  was 
impressed  by  the  audience:  the  sallow  women  in  skirts  and 
blouses,  eager  to  be  made  to  think,  the  men  in  vests  and  shirt 
sleeves,  eager  to  be  allowed  to  laugh,  and  the  wriggling  children, 
eager  to  sneak  away.  She  liked  the  plain  benches,  the  portable 
stage  under  its  red  marquee,  the  great  tent  over  all,  shadowy 
above  strings  of  incandescent  bulbs  at  night  and  by  day  casting 
an  amber  radiance  on  the  patient  crowd.  The  scent  of  dust 
and  trampled  grass  and  sun-baked  wood  gave  her  an  illusion 
of  Syrian  caravans;  she  forgot  the  speakers  while  she  listened 
to  noises  outside  the  tent:  two  farmers  talking  hoarsely,  a 
wagon  creaking  down  Main  Street,  the  crow  of  a  rooster.  She 
was  content.  But  it  was  the  contentment  of  the  lost  hunter 
stopping  to  rest. 

For  from  the  Chautauqua  itself  she  got  nothing  but  wind 
and  chaff  and  heavy  laughter,  the  laughter  of  yokels  at  old 
jokes,  a  mirthless  and  primitive  sound  like  the  cries  of  beasts 
on  a  farm. 

These  were  the  several  instructors  in  the  condensed  uni 
versity's  seven-day  course: 

Nine  lecturers,  four  of  them  ex-ministers,  and  one  an  ex- 
congressman,  all  of  them  delivering  "  inspirational  addresses." 


238  MAIN   STREET 

The  only  facts  or  opinions  which  Carol  derived  from  them 
were:  Lincoln  was  a  celebrated  president  of  the  United  States, 
but  in  his  youth  extremely  poor.  James  J.  Hill  was  the  best- 
known  railroad-man  of  the  West,  and  in  his  youth  extremely 
poo:.  Honesty  and  courtesy  in  business  are  preferable  to 
boorishness  and  exposed  trickery,  but  this  is  not  to  be  taken 
personally,  since  all  persons  in  Gopher  Prairie  are  known  to 
be  honest  and  courteous.  London  is  a  large  city.  A  dis 
tinguished  statesman  once  taught  Sunday  School. 

Four  "  entertainers  "  who  told  Jewish  stories,  Irish  stories, 
German  stories,  Chinese  stories,  and  Tennessee  mountaineer 
stories,  most  of  which  Carol  had  heard. 

A  "lady  elocutionist"  who  recited  Kipling  and  imitated 
children. 

A  lecturer  with  motion-pictures  of  an  Andean  exploration; 
excellent  pictures  and  a  halting  narrative. 

Three  brass-bands,  a  company  of  six  opera-singers,  a  Hawai 
ian  sextette,  and  four  youths  who  played  saxophones  and 
guitars  disguised  as  wash-boards.  The  most  applauded  pieces 
were  those,  such  as  the  "Lucia"  inevitability,  which  the 
audience  had  heard  most  often. 

The  local  superintendent,  who  remained  through  the  week 
while  the  other  enlighteners  went  to  other  Chautauquas  for 
their  daily  performances.  The  superintendent  was  a  bookish, 
underfed  man  who  worked  hard  at  rousing  artificial  enthusiasm, 
at  trying  to  make  the  audience  cheer  by  dividing  them  into 
competitive  squads  and  telling  them  that  they  were  intelligent 
and  made  splendid  communal  noises.  He  gave  most  of  the 
morning  lectures,  droning  with  equal  unhappy  facility  about 
poetry,  the  Holy  Land,  and  the  injustice  to  employers  in  any 
system  of  profit-sharing. 

The  final  item  was  a  man  who  neither  lectured,  inspired,  nor 
entertained;  a  plain  little  man  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets. 
All  the  other  speakers  had  confessed,  "  I  cannot  keep  from 
telling  the  citizens  of  your  beautiful  city  that  none  of  the 
talent  on  this  circuit  have  found  a  more  charming  spot  or 
more  enterprising  and  hospitable  people."  But  the  little  man 
suggested  that  the  architecture  of  Gopher  Prairie  was  hap 
hazard,  and  that  it  was  sottish  to  let  the  lake-front  be  monopo 
lized  by  the  cinder-heaped  wall  of  the  railroad  embankment. 
Afterward  the  audience  grumbled,  "  Maybe  that  guy's  got  the 
right  dope,  but  what's  the  use  of  looking  on  the  dark  side  of 


MAIN   STREET  239 

things  all  the  time?    New  ideas  are  first-rate,  but  not  all  this 
criticism.    Enough  trouble  in  life  without  looking  for  it!  " 

Thus  the  Chautauqua,  as  Carol  saw  it.    After  it,  the  town 
felt  proud  and  educated. 


vm 

Two  weeks  later  the  Great  War  smote  Europe. 

For  a  month  Gopher  Prairie  had  the  delight  of  shuddering, 
then,  as  the  war  settled  down  to  a  business  of  trench-fighting, 
they  forgot. 

When  Carol  talked  about  the  Balkans,  and  the  possibility 
of  a  German  revolution,  Kennicott  yawned,  "Oh  yes,  it's  a 
great  old  scrap,  but  it's  none  of  our  business.  Folks  out  here 
are  too  busy  growing  corn  to  monkey  with  any  fool  war  that 
those  foreigners  want  to  get  themselves  into." 

It  was  Miles  Bjornstam  who  said,  "  I  can't  figure  it  out.  I'm 
opposed  to  wars,  but  still,  seems  like  Germany  has  got  to  be 
licked  because  them  Junkers  stands  in  the  way  of  progress." 

She  was  calling  on  Miles  and  Bea,  early  in  autumn.  They 
had  received  her  with  cries,  with  dusting  of  chairs,  and  a 
running  to  fetch  water  for  coffee.  Miles  stood  and  beamed  at 
her.  He  fell  often  and  joyously  into  his  old  irreverence  about 
the  lords  of  Gopher  Prairie,  but  always — with  a  certain  diffi 
culty — he  added  something  decorous  and  appreciative. 

"  Lots  of  people  have  come  to  see  you,  haven't  they?  " 
Carol  hinted. 

"Why,  Be's  cousin  Tina  comes  in  right  along,  and  the 

foreman  at  the  mill,  and Oh,  we  have  good  times.  Say, 

take  a  look  at  that  Bea!  Wouldn't  you  think  she  was  a 
canary-bird,  to  listen  to  her,  and  to  see  that  Scandahoofian  tow- 
head  of  hers?  But  say,  know  what  she  is?  She's  a  mother 
hen!  Way  she  fusses  over  me — way  she  makes  old  Miles  wear 
a  necktie!  Hate  to  spoil  her  by  letting  her  hear  it,  but  she's 

one  pretty  darn  nice — nice Hell!  What  do  we  care  if 

none  of  the  dirty  snobs  come  and  call?  We've  got  each 
other." 

Carol  worried  about  their  struggle,  but  she  forgot  it  in  the 
stress  of  sickness  and  fear.  For  that  autumn  she  knew  that 
a  baby  was  coming,  that  at  last  life  promised  to  be  interesting 
in  the  peril  of  the  great  change. 


CHAPTER  XX 


THE  baby  was  coming.  Each  morning  she  was  nauseated, 
chilly,  bedraggled,  and  certain  that  she  would  never  again  be 
attractive;  each  twilight  she  was  afraid.  She  did  not  feel 
exalted,  but  unkempt  and  furious.  The  period  of  daily  sick 
ness  crawled  into  an  endless  time  of  boredom.  It  became 
difficult  for  her  to  move  about,  and  she  raged  that  she,  who 
had  been  slim  and  light-footed,  should  have  to  lean  on  a 
stick,  and  be  heartily  commented  upon  by  street  gossips.  She 
was  encircled  by  greasy  eyes.  Every  matron  hinted,  "Now' 
that  you're  going  to  be  a  mother,  dearie,  you'll  get  over  all 
these  ideas  of  yours  and  settle  down."  She  felt  that  willy-nilly 
she  was  being  initiated  into  the  assembly  of  housekeepers ;  with 
the  baby  for  hostage,  she  would  never  escape;  presently  she 
would  be  drinking  coffee  and  rocking  and  talking  about 
diapers. 

"  I  could  stand  fighting  them.  I'm  used  to  that.  But  this 
being  taken  in,  being  taken  as  a  matter  of  course,  I  can't 
stand  it — and  I  must  stand  it!  " 

She  alternately  detested  herself  for  not  appreciating  the 
kindly  women,  and  detested  them  for  their  advice:  lugubrious 
hints  as  to  how  much  she  would  suffer  in  labor,  details  of 
baby-hygiene  based  on  long  experience  and  total  misunder 
standing,  superstitious  cautions  about  the  things  she  must  eat 
and  read  and  look  at  in  prenatal  care  for  the  baby's  soul,  and 
always  a  pest  of  simpering  baby- talk.  Mrs.  Champ  Perry 
bustled  in  to  lend  "Ben  Hur,"  as  a  preventive  of  future  infant 
immorality.  The  Widow  Bogart  appeared  trailing  pinkish  ex 
clamations,  "  And  how  is  our  lovely  'ittle  muzzy  today!  My, 
ain't  it  just  like  they  always  say:  being  in  a  Family  Way  does 
make  the  girlie  so  lovely,  just  like  a  Madonna.  Tell  me — " 
Her  whisper  was  tinged  with  salaciousness — "  does  oo  feel  the 
dear  itsy  one  stirring,  the  pledge  of  love?  I  remember  with 
Cy,  of  course  he  was  so  big — 

"I  do  not  look  lovely,  Mrs.  Bogart.     My  complexion  is 

240 


MAIN   STREET  241 

rotten,  and  my  hair  is  coming  out,  and  I  look  like  a  potato-bag, 
and  I  think  my  arches  are  falling,  and  he  isn't  a  pledge  of 
love,  and  I'm  afraid  he  will  look  like  us,  and  I  don't  believe 
in  mother-devotion,  and  the  whole  business  is  a  confounded 
nuisance  of  a  biological  process,"  remarked  Carol. 

Then  the  baby  was  born,  without  unusual  difficulty:  a  boy 
with  straight  back  and  strong  legs.  The  first  day  she  hated 
him  for  the  tides  of  pain  and  hopeless  fear  he  had  caused; 
she  resented  his  raw  ugliness.  After  that  she  loved  him  with 
all  the  devotion  and  instinct  at  which  she  had  scoffed.  She 
marveled  at  the  perfection  of  the  miniature  hands  as  noisily  as 
did  Kennicott;  she  was  overwhelmed  by  the  trust  with  which 
the  baby  turned  to  her;  passion  for  him  grew  with  each  un- 
poetic  irritating  thing  she  had  to  do  for  him. 

He  was  named  Hugh,  for  her  father. 

Hugh  developed  into  a  thin  healthy  child  with  a  large  head 
and  straight  delicate  hair  of  a  faint  brown.  He  was  thoughtful 
and  casual — a  Kennicott. 

For  two  years  nothing  else  existed.  She  did  not,  as  the 
cynical  matrons  had  prophesied,  "  give  up  worrying  about  the 
world  and  other  folks'  babies  soon  as  she  got  one  of  her  own 
to  fight  for."  The  barbarity  of  that  willingness  to  sacrifice  other 
children  so  that  one  child  might  have  too  much  was  impossible 
to  her.  But  she  would  sacrifice  herself.  She  understood  con 
secration — she  who  answered  Kennicott's  hints  about  having 
Hugh  christened:  "  I  refuse  to  insult  my  baby  and  myself  by 
asking  an  ignorant  young  man  in  a  frock  coat  to  sanction  him, 
to  permit  me  to  have  him!  I  refuse  to  subject  him  to  any 
devil-chasing  rites!  If  I  didn't  give  my  baby — my  baby — 
enough  sanctification  in  those  nine  hours  of  hell,  then  he 
can't  get  any  more  out  of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Zitterel!  " 

"  Well,  Baptists  hardly  ever  christen  kids.  I  was  kind  of 
thinking  more  about  Reverend  Warren,"  said  Kennicott. 

Hugh  was  her  reason  for  living,  promise  of  accomplishment 
in  the  future,  shrine  of  adoration— and  a  diverting  toy.  "  I 
thought  I'd  be  a  dilettante  mother,  but  I'm  as  dismayingly 
natural  as  Mrs.  Bogart,"  she  boasted. 

For  two  years  Carol  was  a  part  of  the  town;  as  much  one 
of  Our  Young  Mothers  as  Mrs.  McGanum.  Her  opinionation 
seemed  dead;  she  had  no  apparent  desire  for  escape;  her  brood 
ing  centered  on  Hugh.  While  she  wondered  at  the  pearl  texture 
of  his  ear  she  exulted,  "  I  feel  like  an  old  woman,  with  a  skin 


242  MAIN   STREET 

like  sandpaper,  beside  him,  and  I'm  glad  of  it!  He  is  perfect. 
He  shall  have  everything.  He  sha'n't  always  stay  here  in 
Gopher  Prairie.  ...  I  wonder  which  is  really  the  best, 
Harvard  or  Yale  or  Oxford?  " 


The  people  who  hemmed  her  in  had  been  brilliantly  rein 
forced  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Whittier  N.  Smail — Kennicott's  Uncle 
Whittier  and  Aunt  Bessie. 

The  true  Main  Streetite  defines  a  relative  as  a  person  to 
whose  house  you  go  uninvited,  to  stay  as  long  as  you  like.  If 
you  hear  that  Lym  Cass  on  his  journey  East  has  spent  all 
his  time  "  visiting  "  in  Oyster  Center,  it  does  not  mean  that  he 
prefers  that  village  to  the  rest  of  New  England,  but  that  he 
has  relatives  there.  It  does  not  mean  that  he  has  written  to 
the  relatives  these  many  years,  nor  that  they  have  ever  given 
signs  of  a  desire  to  look  upon  him.  But  "  you  wouldn't  expect 
a  man  to  go  and  spend  good  money  at  a  hotel  in  Boston, 
when  his  own  third  cousins  live  right  in  the  same  state,  would 
you?  " 

When  the  Smails  sold  their  creamery  in  North  Dakota  the} 
visited  Mr.  SmaiPs  sister,  Kennicott's  mother,  at  Lac-qui- 
Meurt,  then  plodded  on  to  Gopher  Prairie  to  stay  with  their 
nephew.  They  appeared  unannounced,  before  the  baby  was 
born,  took  their  welcome  for  granted,  and  immediately  began 
to  complain  of  the  fact  that  their  room  faced  north. 

Uncle  Whittier  and  Aunt  Bessie  assumed  that  it  was  their 
privilege  as  relatives  to  laugh  at  Carol,  and  their  duty  as 
Christians  to  let  her  know  how  absurd  her  "  notions  "  were. 
They  objected  to  the  food,  to  Oscarina's  lack  of  friendliness, 
to  the  wind,  the  rain,  and  the  immodesty  of  Carol's  maternity 
gowns.  They  were  strong  and  enduring;  for  an  hour  at  a 
time  they  could  go  on  heaving  questions  about  her  father's 
income,  about  her  theology,  and  about  the  reason  why  she  had 
not  put  on  her  rubbers  when  she  had  gone  across  the  street. 
For  fussy  discussion  they  had  a  rich,  full  genius,  and  their 
example  developed  in  Kennicott  a  tendency  to  the  same  form 
of  affectionate  flaying. 

If  Carol  was  so  indiscreet  as  to  murmur  that  she  had  a 
small  headache,  instantly  the  two  Smails  and  Kennicott  were 
at  it.  Every  five  minutes,  every  time  she  sat  down  or  rose  or 


MAIN   STREET  243 

spoke  to  Oscarina,  they  twanged,  "  Is  your  head  better  now? 
Where  does  it  hurt?  Don't  you  keep  hartshorn  in  the  house? 
Didn't  you  walk  too  far  today?  Have  you  tried  hartshorn? 
Don't  you  keep  some  in  the  house  so  it  will  be  handy?  Does 
it  feel  better  now?  How  does  it  feel?  Do  your  eyes  hurt, 
too?  What  time  do  you  usually  get  to  bed?  As  late  as  that? 
Well!  How  does  it  feel  now?" 

In  her  presence  Uncle  Whittier  snorted  at  Kennicott,  "  Carol 
get  these  headaches  often?  Huh?  Be  better  for  her  if  she 
didn't  go  gadding  around  to  all  these  bridge-whist  parties,  and 
took  some  care  of  herself  once  in  a  while!  " 

They  kept  it  up,  commenting,  questioning,  commenting,  ques 
tioning,  till  her  determination  broke  and  she  bleated,  "  For 
heaven's  sake,  don't  dis-cuss  it!  My  head  's  all  right  I  " 

She  listened  to  the  Smails  and  Kennicott  trying  to  deter 
mine  by  dialectics  whether  the  copy  of  the  Dauntless,  which 
Aunt  Bessie  wanted  to  send  to  her  sister  in  Alberta,  ought  to 
have  two  or  four  cents  postage  on  it.  Carol  would  have  taken 
it  to  the  drug  store  and  weighed  it,  but  then  she  was  a 
dreamer,  while  they  were  practical  people  (as  they  frequently 
admitted).  So  they  sought  to  evolve  the  postal  rate  from  their 
inner  consciousnesses,  which,  combined  with  entire  frankness 
in  thinking  aloud,  was  their  method  of  settling  all  problems. 

The  Smails  did  not  "  believe  in  all  this  nonsense  "  about 
privacy  and  reticence.  When  Carol  left  a  letter  from  her 
sister  on  the  table,  she  was  astounded  to  hear  from  Uncle 
Whittier,  "  I  see  your  sister  says  her  husband  is  doing  fine. 
You  ought  to  go  see  her  oftener.  I  asked  Will  and  he  says 
you  don't  go  see  her  very  often.  My!  You  ought  to  go  see 
her  oftener!  " 

If  Carol  was  writing  a  letter  to  a  classmate,  or  planning  the 
week's  menus,  she  could  be  certain  that  Aunt  Bessie  would 
pop  in  and  titter,  "Now  don't  let  me  disturb  you,  I  just 
wanted  to  see  where  you  were,  don't  stop,  I'm  not  going  to  stay 
only  a  second.  I  just  wondered  if  you  could  possibly  have 
thought  that  I  didn't  eat  the  onions  this  noon  because  I  didn't 
think  they  were  properly  cooked,  but  that  wasn't  the  reason 
at  all,  it  wasn't  because  I  didn't  think  they  were  well  cooked, 
I'm  sure  that  everything  in  your  house  is  always  very  dainty 
and  nice,  though  I  do  think  that  Oscarina  is  careless  about 
some  things,  she  doesn't  appreciate  the  big  wages  you  pay  her, 
and  she  is  so  cranky,  all  these  Swedes  are  so  cranky,  I  don't 


244  MAIN   STREET 

really  see  why  you  have  a  Swede,  but But  that  wasn't 

it,  I  didn't  eat  them  not  because  I  didn't  think  they  weren't 
cooked  proper,  it  was  just — I  find  that  onions  don't  agree  with 
me,  it's  very  strange,  ever  since  I  had  an  attack  of  biliousness 
one  time,  I  have  found  that  onions,  either  fried  onions  01 
raw  ones,  and  Whittier  does  love  raw  onions  with  vinegai 
and  sugar  on  them " 

It  was  pure  affection. 

Carol  was  discovering  that  the  one  thing  that  can  be  more 
disconcerting  than  intelligent  hatred  is  demanding  love. 

She  supposed  that  she  was  being  gracefully  dull  and  stand 
ardized  in  the  Smails'  presence,  but  they  scented  the  heretic, 
and  with  forward-stooping  delight  they  sat  and  tried  to  drag 
out  her  ludicrous  concepts  for  their  amusement.  They  were 
like  the  Sunday-afternoon  mob  starting  at  monkeys  in  the 
Zoo,  poking  fingers  and  making  faces  and  giggling  at  the 
resentment  of  the  more  dignified  race. 

With  a  loose-lipped,  superior,  village  smile  Uncle  Whittier 
hinted,  "  What's  this  I  hear  about  your  thinking  Gopher 
Prairie  ought  to  be  all  tore  down  and  rebuilt,  Carrie?  I  don't 
know  where  folks  get  these  new-fangled  ideas.  Lots  of  farmer.0 
in  Dakota  getting  'em  these  days.  About  co-operation.  Thin!: 
they  can  run  stores  better  'n  storekeepers!  Huh!  " 

"  Whit  and  I  didn't  need  no  co-operation  as  long  as  we  was 
farming!  "  triumphed  Aunt  Bessie.  "  Carrie,  tell  your  old 
auntie  now:  don't  you  ever  go  to  church  on  Sunday?  You 
do  go  sometimes?  But  you  ought  to  go  every  Sunday!  When 
you're  as  old  as  I  am,  you'll  learn  that  no  matter  how  smart 
folks  think  they  are,  God  knows  a  whole  lot  more  than  they 
do,  and  then  you'll  realize  and  be  glad  to  go  and  listen  to  your 
pastor!  " 

In  the  manner  of  one  who  has  just  beheld  a  two-headed 
calf  they  repeated  that  they  had  "never  heard  such  funny 
ideas!  "  They  were  staggered  to  learn  that  a  real  tangible 
person,  living  in  Minnesota,  and  married  to  their  own  flesh- 
and-blood  relation,  could  apparently  believe  that  divorce  may 
not  always  be  immoral;  that  illegitimate  children  do  not 
bear  any  special  and  guaranteed  form  of  curse;  that  there 
are  ethical  authorities  outside  of  the  Hebrew  Bible;  that  men 
have  drunk  wine  yet  not  died  in  the  gutter;  that  the  capital 
istic  system  of  distribution  and  the  Baptist  wedding-ceremony 
were  not  known  in  the  Garden  of  Eden;  that  mushrooms  are 


MAIN   STREET  245 

as  edible  as  corn-beef  hash;  that  the  word  "dude"  is  no 
longer  frequently  used;  that  there  are  Ministers  of  the  Gospel 
who  accept  evolution;  that  some  persons  of  apparent  intelligence 
and  business  ability  do  not  always  vote  the  Republican  ticket 
straight;  that  it  is  not  a  universal  custom  to  wear  scratchy 
flannels  next  the  skin  in  winter;  that  a  violin  is  not  inherently 
more  immoral  than  a  chapel  organ;  that  some  poets  do  not  have 
long  hair;  and  that  Jews  are  not  always  pedlers  or  pants- 
makers. 

"  Where  does  she  get  all  them  theories?  "  marveled  Uncle 
Whittier  Smail ;  while  Aunt  Bessie  inquired,  "  Do  you  suppose 
there's  many  folks  got  notions  like  hers?  My!  If  there  are," 
and  her  tone  settled  the  fact  that  there  were  not,  "  I  just  don't 
know  what  the  world's  coming  to!  " 

Patiently — more  or  less — Carol  awaited  the  exquisite  day 
when  they  would  announce  departure.  After  three  weeks  Uncle 
Whittier  remarked,  "  We  kinda  like  Gopher  Prairie.  Guess 
maybe  we'll  stay  here.  We'd  been  wondering  what  we'd  do, 
now  we've  sold  the  creamery  and  my  farms.  So  I  had  a  talk 
with  Ole  Jenson  about  his  grocery,  and  I  guess  I'll  buy  him  out 
and  storekeep  for  a  while." 

He  did. 

Carol  rebelled.  Kennicott  soothed  her:  "Oh,  we  won't  see 
much  of  them.  They'll  have  their  own  house." 

She  resolved  to  be  so  chilly  that  they  would  stay  away.  But 
she  had  no  talent  for  conscious  insolence.  They  found  a  house, 
but  Carol  was  never  safe  from  their  appearance  with  a  hearty, 
"  Thought  we'd  drop  in  this  evening  and  keep  you  from  being 
lonely.  Why,  you  ain't  had  them  curtains  washed  yet!  " 
Invariably,  whenever  she  was  touched  by  the  realization  that 
it  was  they  who  were  lonely,  they  wrecked  her  pitying  affec 
tion  by  comments — questions — comments — advice. 

They  immediately  became  friendly  with  all  of  their  own 
race,  with  the  Luke  Dawsons,  the  Deacon  Piersons,  and  Mrs. 
Bogart;  and  brought  them  along  in  the  evening.  Aunt  Bessie 
was  a  bridge  over  whom  the  older  women,  bearing  gifts  of 
counsel  and  the  ignorance  of  experience,  poured  into  Carol's 
island  of  reserve.  Aunt  Bessie  urged  the  good  Widow  Bogart, 
"  Drop  in  and  see  Carrie  real  often.  Young  folks  today  don't 
understand  housekeeping  like  we  do." 

Mrs.  Bogart  showed  herself  perfectly  willing  to  be  an  as 
sociate  relative. 


246  MAIN   STREET 

Carol  was  thinking  up  protective  insults  when  Kennicott's 
mother  came  down  to  stay  with  Brother  Whittier  for  two 
months.  Carol  was  fond  of  Mrs.  Kennicott.  She  could  not 
carry  out  her  insults. 

She  felt  trapped. 

She  had  been  kidnaped  by  the  town.  She  was  Aunt  Bessie's 
niece,  and  she  was  to  be  a  mother.  She  was  expected,  she 
almost  expected  herself,  to  sit  forever  talking  of  babies,  cooks, 
embroidery  stitches,  the  price  of  potatoes,  and  the  tastes  of 
husbands  in  the  matter  of  spinach. 

She  found  a  refuge  in  the  Jolly  Seventeen.  She  suddenly 
understood  that  they  could  be  depended  upon  to  laugh  with 
her  at  Mrs.  Bogart,  and  she  now  saw  Juanita  Haydock's  gossip 
not  as  vulgarity  but  as  gaiety  and  remarkable  analysis. 

Her  life  had  changed,  even  before  Hugh  appeared.  She 
looked  forward  t9  the  next  bridge  of  the  Jolly  Seventeen,  and 
the  security  of  whispering  with  her  dear  friends  Maud  Dyer 
and  Juanita  and  Mrs.  McGanum. 

She  was  part  of  the  town.  Its  philosophy  and  its  feudi 
dominated  her. 


in 

She  was  no  longer  irritated  by  the  cooing  of  the  matrons, 
nor  by  their  opinion  that  diet  didn't  matter  so  long  as  the 
Little  Ones  had  plenty  of  lace  and  moist  kisses,  but  she 
concluded  that  in  the  care  of  babies  as  in  politics,  intelligence 
was  superior  to  quotations  about  pansies.  She  liked  best  to 
talk  about  Hugh  to  Kennicott,  Vida,  and  the  Bjornstams.  She 
was  happily  domestic  when  Kennicott  sat  by  her  on  the  floor, 
to  watch  baby  make  faces.  She  was  delighted  when  Miles, 
speaking  as  one  man  to  another,  admonished  Hugh,  "  I  wouldn't 
stand  them  skirts  if  I  was  you.  Come  on.  Join  the  union 
and  strike.  Make  'em  give  you  pants." 

As  a  parent,  Kennicott  was  moved  to  establish  the  first 
child- welfare  week  held  in  Gopher  Prairie.  Carol  helped  him 
weigh  babies  and  examine  their  throats,  and  she  wrote  out 
the  diets  for  mute  German  and  Scandinavian  mothers. 

The  aristocracy  of  Gopher  Prairie,  even  the  wives  of  the 
rival  doctors,  took  part,  and  for  several  days  there  was  com 
munity  spirit  and  much  uplift.  But  this  reign  of  love  was 
overthrown  when  the  prize  for  Best  Baby  was  awarded  not  to 


MAIN   STREET  247 

decent  parents  but  to  Bea  and  Miles  Bjornstam!  The  good 
matrons  glared  at  Olaf  Bjornstam,  with  his  blue  eyes,  his 
honey-colored  hair,  and  magnificent  back,  and  they  remarked, 
"  Well,  Mrs.  Kennicott,  maybe  that  Swede  brat  is  as  healthy  as 
your  husband  says  he  is,  but  let  me  tell  you  I  hate  to  think 
of  the  future  that  awaits  any  boy  with  a  hired  girl  for  a 
mother  and  an  awful  irreligious  socialist  for  a  pa!  " 

She  raged,  but  so  violent  was  the  current  of  their  respect 
ability,  so  persistent  was  Aunt  Bessie  in  running  to  her  with 
their  blabber,  that  she  was  embarrassed  when  she  took  Hugh 
to  play  with  Olaf.  She  hated  herself  for  it,  but  she  hoped 
that  no  one  saw  her  go  into  the  Bjornstam  shanty.  She  hated 
herself  and  the  town's  indifferent  cruelty  when  she  saw  Bea's 
radiant  devotion  to  both  babies  alike;  when  she  saw  Miles 
staring"  at  them  wistfully. 

He  had  saved  money,  had  quit  Elder's  planing-mill  and 
started  a  dairy  on  a  vacant  lot  near  his  shack.  He  was 
proud  of  his  three  cows  and  sixty  chickens,  and  got  up  nights 
to  nurse  them. 

"I'll  be  a  big  farmer  before  you  can  bat  an  eye!  I  tell 
you  that  young  fellow  Olaf  is  going  to  go  East  to  college  along 

with  the  Haydock  kids.  Uh Lots  of  folks  dropping  in  to 

chin  with  Bea  and  me  now.  Say!  Ma  Bogart  come  in  one 

day!  She  was I  liked  the  old  lady  fine.  And  the  mill 

foreman  comes  in  right  along.  Oh,  we  got  lots  of  friends. 
You  beti  " 


IV 

Though  the  town  seemed  to  Carol  to  change  no  more  than  the 
surrounding  fields,  there  was  a  constant  shifting,  these  three 
years.  The  citizen  of  the  prairie  drifts  always  westward.  It 
may  be  because  he  is  the  heir  of  ancient  migrations — and  it 
may  be  because  he  finds  within  his  own  spirit  so  little  ad 
venture  that  he  is  driven  to  seek  it  by  changing  his  horizon, 
The  towns  remain  unvaried,  yet  the  individual  faces  alter 
like  classes  in  college.  The  Gopher  Prairie  jeweler  sells  out, 
for  no  discernible  reason,  and  moves  on  to  Alberta  or  the 
state  of  Washington,  to  open  a  shop  precisely  like  his  former 
one,  in  a  town  precisely  like  the  one  he  has  left.  There  is, 
except  among  professional  men  and  the  wealthy,  small  per 
manence  either  of  residence  or  occupation.  A  man  becomes 


248  MAIN   STREET 

farmer,  grocer,  town  policeman,  garageman,  restaurant-owner, 
postmaster,  insurance-agent,  and  farmer  all  over  again,  and  the 
community  more  or  less  patiently  suffers  from  his  lack  of 
knowledge  in  each  of  his  experiments. 

Ole  Jenson  the  grocer  and  Dahl  the  butcher  moved  on  to 
South  Dakota  and  Idaho.  Luke  and  Mrs.  Dawson  picked  up 
ten  thousand  acres  of  prairie  soil,  in  the  magic  portable  form 
of  a  small  check  book,  and  went  to  Pasadena,  to  a  bungalow 
and  sunshine  and  cafeterias.  Chet  Dashaway  sold  his  furniture 
and  undertaking  business  and  wandered  to  Los  Angeles,  where, 
the  Dauntless  reported,  "  Our  good  friend  Chester  has  accepted 
a  fine  position  with  a  real-estate  firm,  and  his  wife  has  in  the 
charming  social  circles  of  the  Queen  City  of  the  Southwest- 
land  that  same  popularity  which  she  enjoyed  in  our  own  society 
sets." 

Rita  Simons  was  married  to  Terry  Gould,  and  rivaled  Juanita 
Haydock  as  the  gayest  of  the  Young  Married  Set.  But  Juanita 
also  acquired  merit.  Harry's  father  died,  Harry  became  senior 
partner  in  the  Bon  Ton  Store,  and  Juanita  was  more  acidulous 
and  shrewd  and  cackling  than  ever.  She  bought  an  evening 
frock,  and  exposed  her  collar-bone  to  the  wonder  of  the  Jolly 
Seventeen,  and  talked  of  moving  to  Minneapolis. 

To  defend  her  position  against  the  new  Mrs.  Terry  Gould 
she  sought  to  attach  Carol  to  her  faction  by  giggling  that 
"some  folks  might  call  Rita  innocent,  but  I've  got  a  hunch 
that  she  isn't  half  as  ignorant  of  things  as  brides  are  supposed 
to  be — and  of  course  Terry  isn't  one-two-three  as  a  doctor 
alongside  of  your  husband." 

Carol  herself  would  gladly  have  followed  Mr.  Ole  Jenson, 
and  migrated  even  to  another  Main  Street ;  flight  from  familiar 
tedium  to  new  tedium  would  have  for  a  time  the  outer  look 
and  promise  of  adventure.  She  hinted  to  Kennicott  of  the 
probable  medical  advantages  of  Montana  and  Oregon.  She 
knew  that  he  was  satisfied  with  Gopher  Prairie,  but  it  gave 
her  vicarious  hope  to  think  of  going,  to  ask  for  railroad  folders 
at  the  station,  to  trace  the  maps  with  a  restless  forefinger. 

Yet  to  the  casual  eye  she  was  not  discontented,  she  was 
not  an  abnormal  and  distressing  traitor  to  the  faith  of  Main 
Street. 

The  settled  citizen  believes  that  the  rebel  is  constantly  in  a 
stew  of  complaining  and,  hearing  of  a  Carol  Kennicott,  he 
gasps,  "  What  an  awful  person!  She  must  be  a  Holy  Terrot 


MAIN   STREET  249 

to  live  with!  Glad  my  folks  are  satisfied  with  things  way 
they  are!  "  Actually,  it  was  not  so  much  as  five  minutes  a 
day  that  Carol  devoted  to  lonely  desires.  It  is  probable  that 
the  agitated  citizen  has  within  his  circle  at  least  one  inarticulate 
rebel  with  aspirations  as  wayward  as  Carol's. 

The  presence  of  the  baby  had  made  her  take  Gopher  Prairie 
and  the  brown  house  seriously,  as  natural  places  of  residence. 
She  pleased  Kennicott  by  being  friendly  with  the  complacent 
maturity  of  Mrs.  Clark  and  Mrs.  Elder,  and  when  she  had 
often  enough  been  in  conference  upon  the  Elders'  new  Cadillac 
car,  or  the  job  which  the  oldest  Clark  boy  had  taken  in  the 
office  of  the  flour-mill,  these  topics  became  important,  things 
to  follow  up  day  by  day. 

With  nine-tenths  of  her  emotion  concentrated  upon  Hugh, 
she  did  not  criticize  shops,  streets,  acquaintances  .  .  .  this 
year  or  two.  She  hurried  to  Uncle  Whittier's  store  for  a 
package  of  corn-flakes,  she  abstractedly  listened  to  Uncle 
Whittier's  denunciation  of  Martin  Mahoney  for  asserting  that 
the  wind  last  Tuesday  had  been  south  and  not  southwest,  she 
came  back  along  streets  that  held  no  surprises  nor  the  star 
tling  faces  of  strangers.  Thinking  of  Hugh's  teething  all  the 
way,  she  did  not  reflect  that  this  store,  these  drab  blocks,  made 
up  all  her  background.  She  did  her  work,  and  she  triumphed 
over  winning  from  the  Clarks  at  five  hundred. 


The  most  considerable  event  of  the  two  years  after  the 
birth  of  Hugh  occurred  when  Vida  Sherwin  resigned  from  the 
high  school  and  was  married.  Carol  was  her  attendant,  and 
as  the  wedding  was  at  the  Episcopal  Church,  all  the  women 
wore  new  kid  slippers  and  long  white  kid  gloves,  and  looked 
refined. 

For  years  Carol  had  been  little  sister  to  Vida,  and  had  never 
in  the  least  known  to  what  degree  Vida  loved  her  and  hated 
her  and  in  curious  strained  ways  was  bound  to  her. 


CHAPTER  XXI 


GRAY  steel  that  seems  unmoving  because  it  spins  so  fast  in  the 
balanced  fly-wheel,  gray  snow  in  an  avenue  of  elms,  gray  dawn 
with  the  sun  behind  it — this  was  the  gray  of  Vida  Sherwin's 
life  at  thirty-nine. 

She  was  small  and  active  and  sallow;  her  yellow  hair  was 
faded,  and  looked  dry;  her  blue  silk  blouses  and  modest 
lace  collars  and  high  black  shoes  and  sailor  hats  were  as  literal 
and  uncharming  as  a  schoolroom  desk ;  but  her  eyes  determined 
her  appearance,  revealed  her  as  a  personage  and  a  force,  in 
dicated  her  faith  in  the  goodness  and  purpose  of  everything. 
They  were  blue,  and  they  were  never  still;  they  expressed 
amusement,  pity,  enthusiasm.  If  she  had  been  seen  in  sleep, 
with  the  wrinkles  beside  her  eyes  stilled  and  the  creased  lids 
hiding  the  radiant  irises,  she  would  have  lost  her  potency. 

She  was  born  in  a  hill-smothered  Wisconsin  village  where 
her  father  was  a  prosy  minister;  she  labored  through  a  sanc 
timonious  college;  she  taught  for  two  years  in  an  iron-range 
town  of  blurry-faced  Tatars  and  Montenegrins,  and  wastes  of 
ore,  and  when  she  came  to  Gopher  Prairie,  its  trees  and  the 
shining  spaciousness  of  the  wheat  prairie  made  her  certain 
that  she  was  in  paradise. 

She  admitted  to  her  fellow-teachers  that  the  schoolbuilding 
was  slightly  damp,  but  she  insisted  that  the  rooms  were 
"arranged  so  conveniently — and  then  that  bust  of  President 
McKinley  at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  it's  a  lovely  art-work,  and 
isn't  it  an  inspiration  to  have  the  brave,  honest,  martyr 
president  to  think  about!  "  She  taught  French,  English,  and 
history,  and  the  Sophomore  Latin  class,  which  dealt  in  matters 
of  a  metaphysical  nature  called  Indirect  Discourse  and  the 
Ablative  Absolute.  Each  year  she  was  reconvinced  that  the 
pupils  were  beginning  to  learn  more  quickly.  She  spent  four 
winters  in  building  up  the  Debating  Society,  and  when  the 
debate  really  was  lively  one  Friday  afternoon,  and  the  speakers 
of  pieces  did  not  forget  their  lines,  she  felt  rewarded. 

250 


MAIN   STREET  251 

She  lived  an  engrossed  useful  life,  and  seemed  as  cool  and 
*imple  as  an  apple.  But  secretly  she  was  creeping  among  fears, 
longing,  and  guilt.  She  knew  what  it  was,  but  she  dared  not 
name  it.  She  hated  even  the  sound  of  the  word  "  sex."  When 
she  dreamed  of  being  a  woman  of  the  harem,  with  great  white 
warm  limbs,  she  awoke  to  shudder,  defenseless  in  the  dusk  of 
her  room.  She  prayed  to  Jesus,  always  to  the  Son  of  God, 
offering  him  the  terrible  power  of  her  adoration,  addressing  him 
as  the  eternal  lover,  growing  passionate,  exalted,  large,  as  she 
contemplated  his  splendor.  Thus  she  mounted  to  endurance 
and  surcease. 

By  day,  rattling  about  in  many  activities,  she  was  able  to 
ridicule  her  blazing  nights  of  darkness.  With  spurious  cheer 
fulness  she  announced  everywhere,  "  I  guess  I'm  a  born  spin 
ster,"  and  "  No  one  will  ever  marry  a  plain  schoolma'am  like 
me,"  and  "You  men,  great  big  noisy  bothersome  creatures, 
we  women  wouldn't  have  you  round  the  place,  dirtying  up  nice 
dean  rooms,  if  it  wasn't  that  you  have  to  be  petted  and 
guided.  We  just  ought  to  say  '  Scat!  J  to  all  of  you!  " 

But  when  a  man  held  her  close  at  a  dance,  even  when 
"  Professor  "  George  Edwin  Mott  patted  her  hand  paternally 
as  they  considered  the  naughtinesses  of  Cy  Bogart,  she  quiv 
ered,  and  reflected  how  superior  she  was  to  have  kept  her 
virginity. 

In  the  autumn  of  1911,  a  year  before  Dr.  Will  Kennicott 
was  married,  Vida  was  his  partner  at  a  five-hundred  tourna 
ment.  She  was  thirty-four  then;  Kennicott  about  thirty-six. 
To  her  he  was  a  superb,  boyish,  diverting  creature;  all  the 
heroic  qualities  in  a  manly  magnificent  body.  They  had 
been  helping  the  hostess  to  serve  the  Waldorf  salad  and  coffee 
and  gingerbread.  They  were  in  the  kitchen,  side  by  side  on 
a  bench,  while  the  others  ponderously  supped  in  the  room 
beyond. 

Kennicott  was  masculine  and  experimental.  He  stroked 
Vida's  hand,  he  put  his  arm  carelessly  about  her  shoulder. 

"  Don't!  "  she  said  sharply. 

"You're  a  cunning  thing,"  he  offered,  patting  the  back  of 
her  shoulder  in  an  exploratory  manner. 

While  she  strained  away,  she  longed  to  move  nearer  to  him. 
He  bent  over,  looked  at  her  knowingly.  She  glanced  down  at 
his  left  hand  as  it  touched  her  knee.  She  sprang  up,  started 
noisily  and  needlessly  to  wash  the  dishes.  He  helped  her.  H« 


25*  MAIN   STREET 

was  too  lazy  to  adventure  further — and  too  used  to  women  m 
his  profession.  She  was  grateful  for  the  impersonality  of  his 
talk.  It  enabled  her  to  gain  control.  She  knew  that  she  had 
skirted  wild  thoughts. 

A  month  after,  on  a  sleighing-party,  under  the  buffalo  robes 
in  the  bob-sled,  he  whispered,  "  You  pretend  to  be  a  grown-up 
schoolteacher,  but  you're  nothing  but  a  kiddie."  His  arm 
was  about  her.  She  resisted. 

"  Don't  you  like  the  poor  lonely  bachelor?  "  he  yammered  in 
a  fatuous  way. 

"  No,  I  don't!  You  don't  care  for  me  in  the  least.  You're 
just  practising  on  me." 

"  You're  so  mean!     I'm  terribly  fond  of  you." 

"  I'm  not  of  you.  And  I'm  not  going  to  let  myself  be  fond 
of  you,  either." 

He  persistently  drew  her  toward  him.  She  clutched  his  arm. 
Then  she  threw  off  the  robe,  climbed  out  of  the  sled,  raced  after 
it  with  Harry  Haydock.  At  the  dance  which  followed  the 
sleigh-ride  Kennicott  was  devoted  to  the  watery  prettiness  of 
Maud  Dyer,  and  Vida  was  noisily  interested  in  getting  up  a 
Virginia  Reel.  Without  seeming  to  watch  Kennicott,  she  knew 
that  he  did  not  once  look  at  her. 

That  was  all  of  her  first  love-affair. 

He  gave  no  sign  of  remembering  that  he  was  "  terribly  fond." 
She  waited  for  him;  she  reveled  in  longing,  and  in  a  sense  of 
guilt  because  she  longed.  She  told  herself  that  she  did  not 
want  part  of  him ;  unless  he  gave  her  all  his  devotion  she  would 
never  let  him  touch  her;  and  when  she  found  that  she  was 
probably  lying,  she  burned  with  scorn.  She  fought  it  out  in 
prayer.  She  knelt  in  a  pink  flannel  nightgown,  her  thin 
hair  down  her  back,  her  forehead  as  full  of  horror  as  a  mask 
of  tragedy,  while  she  identified  her  love  for  the  Son  of  God 
with  her  love  for  a  mortal,  and  wondered  if  any  other  woman 
had  ever  been  so  sacrilegious.  She  wanted  to  be  a  nun 
and  observe  perpetual  adoration.  She  bought  a  rosary,  but 
she  had  been  so  bitterly  reared  as  a  Protestant  that  she  could 
not  bring  herself  to  use  it. 

Yet  none  of  her  intimates  in  the  school  and  in  the  boarding- 
house  knew  of  her  abyss  of  passion.  They  said  she  was  "  so 
optimistic."  „ 

When  she  heard  that  Kennicott  was  to  marry  a  girl,  pretty, 
young,  and  imposingly  from  the  Cities,  Vida  despaired.  She 


MAIN   STREET  253 

congratulated  Kennicott;  carelessly  ascertained  from  him  the 
hour  of  marriage.  At  that  hour,  sitting  in  her  room,  Vida  pic 
tured  the  wedding  in  St.  Paul.  Full  of  an  ecstasy  which  horri 
fied  her,  she  followed  Kennicott  and  the  girl  who  had  stolen 
her  place,  followed  them  to  the  train,  through  the  evening, 
the  night. 

She  was  relieved  when  she  had  worked  out  a  belief  that  she 
wasn't  really  shameful,  that  there  was  a  mystical  relation  be 
tween  herself  and  Carol,  so  that  she  was  vicariously  yet  veri 
tably  with  Kennicott,  and  had  the  right  to  be. 

She  saw  Carol  during  the  first  five  minutes  in  Gopher  Prairie. 
She  stared  at  the  passing  motor,  at  Kennicott  and  the  girl 
beside  him.  In  that  fog  world  of  transference  of  emotion  Vida 
had  no  normal  jealousy  but  a  conviction  that,  since  through 
Carol  she  had  received  Kennicott's  love,  then  Carol  was  a  part 
of  her,  an  astral  self,  a  heightened  and  more  beloved  self. 
She  was  glad  of  the  girl's  charm,  of  the  smooth  black  hair, 
the  airy  head  and  young  shoulders.  But  she  was  suddenly 
angry.  Carol  glanced  at  her  for  a  quarter-second,  but  looked 
past  her,  at  an  old  roadside  barn.  If  she  had  made  the  great 
sacrifice,  at  least  she  expected  gratitude  and  recognition,  Vida 
raged,  while  her  conscious  schoolroom  mind  fussily  begged 
her  to  control  this  insanity. 

During  her  first  call  half  of  her  wanted  to  welcome  a  fellow 
reader  of  books;  the  other  half  itched  to  find  out  whether 
Carol  knew  anything  about  Kennicott's  former  interest  in 
herself.  She  discovered  that  Carol  was  not  aware  that  he  had 
ever  touched  another  woman's  hand.  Carol  was  an  amusing, 
naive,  curiously  learned  child.  While  Vida  was  most  actively 
describing  the  glories  of  the  Thanatopsis,  and  complimenting 
this  librarian  on  her  training  as  a  worker,  she  was  fancying 
that  this  girl  was  the  child  born  of  herself  and  Kennicott;  and 
out  of  that  symbolizing  she  had  a  comfort  she  had  not  known 
for  months. 

When  she  came  home,  after  supper  with  the  Kennicotts  and 
Guy  Pollock,  she  had  a  sudden  and  rather  pleasant  backsliding 
from  devotion.  She  bustled  into  her  room,  she  slammed  her 
hat  on  the  bed,  and  chattered,  "  I  don't  care!  I'm  a  lot  like 
her — except  a  few  years  older.  I'm  light  and  quick,  too,  and 

I  can  talk  just  as  well  as  she  can,  and  I'm  sure Men  are 

such  fools.  I'd  be  ten  times  as  sweet  to  make  love  to  as  that 
dreamy  baby.  And  I  am  as  good-looking!  " 


254  MAIN   STREET 

But  as  she  sat  on  the  bed  and  stared  at  her  thin  thighs, 
defiance  oozed  away.  She  mourned: 

"No.  I'm  not.  Dear  God,  how  we  fool  ourselves!  I  pre 
tend  I'm  '  spiritual.'  I  pretend  my  legs  are  graceful.  They 
aren't.  They're  skinny.  Old-maidish.  I  hate  it!  I  hate  that 
impertinent  young  woman  1  A  selfish  cat,  taking  his  love 
for  granted.  .  .  .  No,  she's  adorable.  ...  I  don't 
think  she  ought  to  be  so  friendly  with  Guy  Pollock." 

For  a  year  Vida  loved  Carol,  longed  to  and  did  not  pry  into 
the  details  of  her  relations  with  Kennicott,  enjoyed  her  spirit 
of  play  as  expressed  in  childish  tea-parties,  and,  with  the 
mystic  bond  between  them  forgotten,  was  healthily  vexed  by 
Carol's  assumption  that  she  was  a  sociological  messiah  come 
to  save  Gopher  Prairie.  This  last  facet  of  Vida's  thought  was 
the  one  which,  after  a  year,  was  most  often  turned  to  the 
light.  In  a  testy  way  she  brooded,  "  These  people  that  want 
to  change  everything  all  of  a  sudden  without  doing  any  work, 
make  me  tired!  Here  I  have  to  go  and  work  for  four  years, 
picking  out  the  pupils  for  debates,  and  drilling  them,  and 
nagging  at  them  to  get  them  to  look  up  references,  and  begging 
them  to  choose  their  own  subjects — four  years,  to  get  up  a 
couple  of  good  debates!  And  she  comes  rushing  in,  and  expects 
in  one  year  to  change  the  whole  town  into  a  lollypop  paradise 
with  everybody  stopping  everything  else  to  grow  tulips  and 
drink  tea.  And  it's  a  comfy  homey  old  town,  too!  " 

She  had  such  an  outburst  after  each  of  Carol's  campaigns— 
for  better  Thanatopsis  programs,  for  Shavian  plays,  for  more 
human  schools — but  she  never  betrayed  herself,  and  always  she 
was  penitent. 

Vida  was,  and  always  would  be,  a  reformer,  a  liberal.  She 
believed  that  details  could  excitingly  be  altered,  but  that 
things-in-general  were  comely  and  kind  and  immutable.  Carol 
was,  without  understanding  or  accepting  it,  a  revolutionist,  a 
radical,  and  therefore  possessed  of  "  constructive  ideas,"  which 
only  the  destroyer  can  have,  since  the  reformer  believes  that 
all  the  essential  constructing  has  already  been  done.  After 
years  of  intimacy  it  was  this  unexpressed  opposition  more  than 
the  fancied  loss  of  Kennicott's  love  which  held  Vida  irritably 
fascinated. 

But  the  birth  of  Hugh  revived  the  transcendental  emotion 
She  was  indignant  that  Carol  should  not  be  utterly  fulfilled  in 
having  borne  Kennicott's  child.  She  admitted  that  Carol 


MAIN   STREET  255 

seemed  to  have  affection  and  immaculate  care  for  the  baby, 
but  she  began  to  identify  herself  now  with  Kennicott,  and  in 
this  phase  to  feel  that  she  had  endured  quite  too  much  from 
Carol's  instability. 

She  recalled  certain  other  women  who  had  come  from 
the  Outside  and  had  not  appreciated  Gopher  Prairie.  She 
remembered  the  rector's  wife  who  had  been  chilly  to  callers 
and  who  was  rumored  throughout  the  town  to  have  said, 
"  Re-ah-ly  I  cawn't  endure  this  bucolic  heartiness  in  the  re* 
sponses.J>  The  woman  was  positively  known  to  have  worn 
handkerchiefs  in  her  bodice  as  padding — oh,  the  town  had 
simply  roared  at  her.  Of  course  the  rector  and  she  were 
got  rid  of  in  a  few  months. 

Then  there  was  the  mysterious  woman  with  the  dyed  hair 
and  penciled  eyebrows,  who  wore  tight  English  dresses,  like 
basques,  who  smelled  of  stale  musk,  who  flirted  with  the  men 
and  got  them  to  advance  money  for  her  expenses  in  a  law 
suit,  who  laughed  at  Vida's  reading  at  a  school-entertainment, 
and  went  off  owing  a  hotel-bill  and  the  three  hundred  dollars 
she  had  borrowed. 

Vida  insisted  that  she  loved  Carol,  but  with  some  satisfaction 
she  compared  her  to  these  traducers  of  the  town. 


Vida  had  enjoyed  Raymie  Wutherspoon's  singing  in  the 
Episcopal  choir;  she  had  thoroughly  reviewed  the  weather  with 
!iim  at  Methodist  sociables  and  in  the  Bon  Ton.  But  she  did 
not  really  know  him  till  she  moved  to  Mrs.  Gurrey's  boarding- 
house.  It  was  five  years  after  her  affair  with  Kennicott.  She 
was  thirty-nine,  Raymie  perhaps  a  year  younger. 

She  said  to  him,  and  sincerely,  "  My!  You  can  do  anything, 
with  your  brains  and  tact  and  that  heavenly  voice.  You  were 
so  good  in  'The  Girl  from  Kankakee.'  You  made  me  feel 
terribly  stupid.  If  you'd  gone  on  the  stage,  I  believe  you'd 
be  just  as  good  as  anybody  in  Minneapolis.  But  still,  I'm  not 
sorry  you  stuck  to  business.  It's  such  a  constructive  career." 

"  Do  you  really  think  so?  "  yearned  Raymie,  across  the 
apple-sauce. 

It  was  the  first  time  that  either  of  them  had  found  a  de 
pendable  intellectual  companionship.  They  looked  down  on 
Willis  Woodford  the  bank-clerk,  and  his  anxious  babycentric 


256  MAIN    STREET 

wife,  the  silent  Lyman  Casses,  the  slangy  traveling  man,  and 
the  rest  of  Mrs.  Gurrey's  unenlightened  guests.  They  sat 
opposite,  and  they  sat  late.  They  were  exhilarated  to  find  that 
they  agreed  in  confession  of  faith: 

"  People  like  Sam  Clark  and  Harry  Haydock  aren't  earnest 
about  music  and  pictures  and  eloquent  sermons  and  really 
refined  movies,  but  then,  on  the  other  hand,  people  like  Carol 
Kemiicott  put  too  much  stress  on  all  this  art.  Folks  ought 
to  appreciate  lovely  things,  but  just  the  same,  they  got  to  be 
practical  and — they  got  to  look  at  things  in  a  practical  way." 

Smiling,  passing  each  other  the  pressed-glass  pickle-dish, 
seeing  Mrs.  Gurrey's  linty  supper-cloth  irradiated  by  the  light 
of  intimacy,  Vida  and  Raymie  talked  about  Carol's  rose-colored 
turban,  Carol's  sweetness,  Carol's  new  low  shoes,  Carol's  erron 
eous  theory  that  there  was  no  need  of  strict  discipline  in  school, 
Carol's  amiability  in  the  Bon  Ton,  Carol's  flow  of  wild  ideas, 
which,  honestly,  just  simply  made  you  nervous  trying  to  keep 
track  of  them; 

About  the  lovely  display  of  gents'  shirts  in  the  Bon  Ton 
window  as  dressed  by  Raymie,  about  Raymie's  offertory  last 
Sunday,  the  fact  that  there  weren't  any  of  these  new  solos  as 
nice  as  "  Jerusalem  the  Golden,"  and  the  way  Raymie  stood 
up  to  Juanita  Haydock  when  she  came  into  the  store  and 
tried  to  run  things  and  he  as  much  as  told  her  that  she  was 
so  anxious  to  have  folks  think  she  was  smart  and  bright  that 
she  said  things  she  didn't  mean,  and  anyway,  Raymie  was 
running  the  shoe-department,  and  if  Juanita,  or  Harry  either, 
didn't  like  the  way  he  ran  things,  they  could  go  get  another 
man; 

About  Vida's  new  jabot  which  made  her  look  thirty-two 
(Vida's  estimate)  or  twenty- two  (Raymie's  estimate),  Vida's 
plan  to  have  the  high-school  Debating  Society  give  a  playlet, 
and  the  difficulty  of  keeping  the  younger  boys  well  behaved 
on  the  playground  when  a  big  lubber  like  Cy  Bogart  acted 
up  so; 

About  the  picture  post-card  which  Mrs.  Dawson  had  sent  to 
Mrs.  Cass  from  Pasadena,  showing  roses  growing  right  out 
doors  in  February,  the  change  in  time  on  No.  4,  the  reckless 
way  Dr.  Gould  always  drove  his  auto,  the  reckless  way  almost 
all  these  people  drove  their  autos,  the  fallacy  of  supposing 
that  these  socialists  could  carry  on  a  government  for  as  much 
as  six  months  if  they  ever  did  have  a  chance  to  try  out  their 


MAIN   STREET  257 

theories,  and  the  crazy  way  in  which  Carol  jumped  from 
subject  to  subject. 

Vida  had  once  beheld  Raymie  as  a  thin  man  with  spectacles, 
mournful  drawn-out  face,  and  colorless  stiff  hair.  Now  she 
noted  that  his  jaw  was  square,  that  his  long  hands  moved 
quickly  and  were  bleached  in  a  refined  manner,  and  that  his 
trusting  eyes  indicated  that  he  had  "  led  a  clean  life."  She 
began  to  call  him  "  Ray,"  and  to  bounce  in  defense  gf  his 
unselfishness  and  thoughtfulness  every  time  Juanita  Haydock 
or  Rita  Gould  giggled  about  him  at  the  Jolly  Seventeen. 

On  a  Sunday  afternoon  of  late  autumn  they  walked  down 
to  Lake  Minniemashie.  Ray  said  that  he  would  like  to  see 
the  ocean ;  it  must  be  a  grand  sight ;  it  must  be  much  grander 
than  a  lake,  even  a  great  big  lake.  Vida  had  seen  it,  she 
stated  modestly;  she  had  seen  it  on  a  summer  trip  to  Cape 
Cod. 

"Have  you  been  clear  to  Cape  Cod?  Massachusetts?  I 
knew  you'd  traveled,  but  I  never  realized  you'd  been  that 
far!  " 

Made  taller  and  younger  by  his  interest  she  poured  out,  "  Oh 
my  yes.  It  was  a  wonderful  trip.  So  many  points  of  interest 
through  Massachusetts — historical.  There's  Lexington  where 
we  turned  back  the  redcoats,  and  Longfellow's  home  at  Cam 
bridge,  and  Cape  Cod — just  everything — fishermen  and  whale- 
ships  and  sand-dunes  and  everything." 

She  wished  that  she  had  a  little  cane  to  carry.  He  broke 
off  a  willow  branch. 

"  My,  you're  strong!  "  she  said. 

"  No,  not  very.  I  wish  there  was  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  here,  so  I 
could  take  up  regular  exercise.  I  used  to  think  I  could  do 
pretty  good  acrobatics,  if  I  had  a  chance." 

"  I'm  sure  you  could.  You're  unusually  lithe,  for  a  large 
man." 

"  Oh  no,  not  so  very.  But  I  wish  we  had  a  Y.  M.  It  would 
be  dandy  to  have  lectures  and  everything,  and  I'd  like  to  take 
a  class  in  improving  the  memory — I  believe  a  fellow  ought 
to  go  on  educating  himself  and  improving  his  mind  even  if  he  is 
in  business,  don't  you,  Vida — I  guess  I'm  kind  of  fresh  to  call 
you  '  Vida ' !  " 

"  I've  been  calling  you  '  Ray '  for  weeks!  " 

He  wondered  why  she  sounded  tart. 

He  helped  her  down  the  bank  to  the  edge  of  the  lake  but 


258  MAIN   STREET 

dropped  her  hand  abruptly,  and  as  they  sat  on  a  willow  log 
and  he  brushed  her  sleeve,  he  delicately  moved  over  and 
murmured,  "  Oh,  excuse  me — accident." 

She  stared  at  the  mud-browned  chilly  water,  the  floating 
gray  reeds. 

"  You  look  so  thoughtful,"  he  said. 

She  threw  out  her  hands.  "I  am !  Will  you  kindly  tell 
me  what's  the  use  of — anything!  Oh,  don't  mind  me.  I'm 
a  moody  old  hen.  Tell  me  about  your  plan  for  getting  a 
partnership  in  the  Bon  Ton.  I  do  think  you're  right:  Harry 
Haydock  and  that  mean  old  Simons  ought  to  give  you  one." 

He  hymned  the  old  unhappy  wars  in  which  he  had  been 
Achilles  and  the  mellifluous  Nestor,  yet  gone  his  righteous  ways 
unheeded  by  the  cruel  kings.  .  .  .  "  Why,  if  I've  told 
'em  once,  I've  told  'em  a  dozen  times  to  get  in  a  side-line  of 
)ight-weight  pants  for  gents'  summer  wear,  and  of  course  here 
they  go  and  let  a  cheap  kike  like  Rifkin  beat  them  to  it 
and  grab  the  trade  right  off  'em,  and  then  Harry  said — 
you  know  how  Harry  is,  maybe  he  don't  mean  to  be  grouchy, 
but  he's  such  a  sore-head " 

He  gave  her  a  hand  to  rise.  "  If  you  don't  mind.  I  think 
a  fellow  is  awful  if  a  lady  goes  on  a  walk  with  him  and  she 
can't  trust  him  and  he  tries  to  flirt  with  her  and  all." 

"I'm  sure  you're  highly  trustworthy!  "  she  snapped,  and 
she  sprang  up  without  his  aid.  Then,  smiling  excessively, 
"  Uh — don't  you  think  Carol  sometimes  fails  to  appreciate  Dr. 
Will's  ability?  " 


in 

Ray  habitually  asked  her  about  his  window-trimming,  the 
display  of  the  new  shoes,  the  best  music  for  the  entertainment 
at  the  Eastern  Star,  and  (though  he  was  recognized  as  a  pro 
fessional  authority  on  what  the  town  called  "  gents'  furnish 
ings  ")  about  his  own  clothes.  She  persuaded  him  not  to  wear 
the  small  bow  ties  which  made  him  look  like  an  elongated 
Sunday  School  scholar.  Once  she  burst  out: 

"  Ray,  I  could  shake  you!  Do  you  know  you're  too  apolo 
getic?  You  always  appreciate  other  people  too  much.  You 
fuss  over  Carol  Kennicott  when  she  has  some  crazy  theory  that 
we  all  ought  to  turn  anarchists  or  live  on  figs  and  nuts  or 
something.  And  you  listen  when  Harry  Haydock  tries  to  show 


MAIN   STREET  259 

off  and  talk  about  turnovers  and  credits  and  things  you  know 
lots  better  than  he  does.  Look  folks  in  the  eye!  Glare  at 
'em!  Talk  deep!  You're  the  smartest  man  in  town,  if  you 
only  knew  it.  You  are!" 

He  could  not  believe  it.  He  kept  coming  back  to  her  for 
confirmation.  He  practised  glaring  and  talking  deep,  but  he 
circuitously  hinted  to  Vida  that  when  he  had  tried  to  look 
Harry  Haydock  hi  the  eye,  Harry  had  inquired,  "  What's  the 
matter  with  you,  Raymie?  Got  a  pain?  "  But  afterward 
Harry  had  asked  about  Kantbeatum  socks  in  a  manner  which, 
Ray  felt,  was  somehow  different  from  his  former  condescension. 

They  were  sitting  on  the  squat  yellow  satin  settee  in  the 
boarding-house  parlor.  As  Ray  reannounced  that  he  simply 
wouldn't  stand  it  many  more  years  if  Harry  didn't  give  him  a 
partnership,  his  gesticulating  hand  touched  Vida's  shoulders. 

"Oh,  excuse  me!  "  he  pleaded. 

"  It's  all  right.  Well,  I  think  I  must  be  running  up  to  my 
room.  Headache,"  she  said  briefly. 


IV 

Ray  and  she  had  stopped  in  at  Dyer's  for  a  hot  chocolate 
on  their  way  home  from  the  movies,  that  March  evening.  Vida 
speculated,  "  Do  you  know  that  I  may  not  be  here  next  year?  " 

"  What  do  you  mean?  " 

With  her  fragile  narrow  nails  she  smoothed  the  glass  slab 
which  formed  the  top  of  the  round  table  at  which  they  sat. 
She  peeped  through  the  glass  at  the  perfume-boxes  of  black  and 
gold  and  citron  in  the  hollow  table.  She  "looked  about  at 
shelves  of  red  rubber  water-bottles,  pale  yellow  sponges,  wash- 
rags  with  blue  borders,  hair-brushes  of  polished  cherry  backs. 
She  shook  her  head  like  a  nervous  medium  coming  out  of  a 
trance,  stared  at  him  unhappily,  demanded: 

"  Why  should  I  stay  here?  And  I  must  make  up  my  mind. 
Now.  Time  to  renew  our  teaching-contracts  for  next  year. 
I  think  I'll  go  teach  in  some  other  town.  Everybody  here  is 
tired  of  me.  I  might  as  well  go.  Before  folks  come  out  and 
say  they're  tired  of  me.  I  have  to  decide  tonight.  I  might  as 
well Oh,  no  matter.  Come.  Let's  skip.  It's  late." 

She  sprang  up,  ignoring  his  wail  of  "Vida!  Wait!  Sit 
down!  Gosh!  I'm  flabbergasted!  Gee!  Vida!  "  She 
marched  out.  While  he  was  paying  his  check  she  got  ahead. 


260  MAIN    STREET 

He  ran  after  her,  blubbering,  "  Vida!  Wait!  "  In  the  shade 
of  the  lilacs  in  front  of  the  Gougerling  house  he  came  up  with 
her,  stayed  her  flight  by  a  hand  on  her  shoulder. 

"  Oh,  don't!  Don't!  What  does  it  matter?  "  she  begged. 
She  was  sobbing,  her  soft  wrinkly  lids  soaked  with  tears. 
"  Who  cares  for  my  affection  or  help?  I  might  as  well  drift 
on,  forgotten.  O  Ray,  please  don't  hold  me.  Let  me  go. 
I'll  just  decide  not  to  renew  my  contract  here,  and — and 
drift— way  off " 

His  hand  was  steady  on  her  shoulder.  She  dropped  her 
head,  rubbed  the  back  of  his  hand  with  her  cheek. 

They  were  married  in  June. 


They  took  the  Ole  Jenson  house.  "  It's  small,"  said  Vida, 
"  but  it's  got  the  dearest  vegetable  garden,  and  I  love  having 
time  to  get  near  to  Nature  for  once." 

Though  she  became  Vida  Wutherspoon  technically,  and 
though  she  certainly  had  no  ideals  about  the  independence  of 
keeping  her  name,  she  continued  to  be  known  as  Vida  Sher- 
win. 

She  had  resigned  from  the  school,  but  she  kept  up  one  class 
in  English.  She  bustled  about  on  every  committee  of  the 
Thanatopsis;  she  was  always  popping  into  the  rest-room  to 
make  Mrs.  Nodelquist  sweep  the  floor;  she  was  appointed  to 
the  library-board  to  succeed  Carol;  she  taught  the  Senior 
Girls'  Class  in  the  Episcopal  Sunday  School,  and  tried  to  revive 
the  King's  Daughters.  She  exploded  into  self-confidence  and 
happiness;  her  draining  thoughts  were  by  marriage  turned 
into  energy.  She  became  daily  and  visibly  more  plump,  and 
though  she  chattered  as  eagerly,  she  was  less  obviously  admir 
ing  of  marital  bliss,  less  sentimental  about  babies,  sharper  in 
demanding  that  the  entire  town  share  her  reforms — the  pur 
chase  of  a  park,  the  compulsory  cleaning  of  back-yards. 

She  penned  Harry  Haydock  at  his  desk  in  the  Bon  Ton; 
she  interrupted  his  joking;  she  told  him  that  it  was  i.<.ay  who 
had  buil*  up  the  shoe-department  and  men's  department;  she 
demanden  that  he  be  made  a  partner.  Before  Harry  could 
answer  sne  threatened  that  Ray  and  she  would  start  a  rival 
shop.  "  I'll  clerk  behind  the  counter  myself,  and  a  Certain 
Party  is  all  ready  to  put  up  the  money." 


MAIN   STREET  261 

She  rather  wondered  who  the  Certain  Party  was. 

Ray  was  made  a  one-sixth  partner. 

He  became  a  glorified  floor-walker,  greeting  the  men  with 
new  poise,  no  longer  coyly  subservient  to  pretty  women. 
When  he  was  not  affectionately  coercing  people  into  buying 
things  they  did  not  need,  he  stood  at  the  back  of  the  store, 
glowing,  abstracted,  feeling  masculine  as  he  recalled  the 
tempestuous  surprises  of  love  revealed  by  Vida. 

The  only  remnant  of  Vida's  identification  of  herself  with 
Carol  was  a  jealousy  when  she  saw  Kennicott  and  Ray  to 
gether,  and  reflected  that  some  people  might  suppose  that 
Kennicott  was  his  superior.  She  was  sure  that  Carol  thought 
so,  and  she  wanted  to  shriek,  "You  needn't  try  to  gloat!  I 
wouldn't  have  your  pokey  old  husband.  He  hasn't  one  single 
bit  of  Ray's  spiritual  nobility." 


CHAPTER  XXII 


THE  greatest  mystery  about  a  human  being  is  not  his  reaction 
to  sex  or  praise,  but  the  manner  in  which  he  contrives  to  put 
in  twenty- four  hours  a  day.  It  is  this  which  puzzles  the  long 
shoreman  about  the  clerk,  the  Londoner  about  the  bushman. 
It  was  this  which  puzzled  Carol  in  regard  to  the  married  Vida. 
Carol  herself  had  the  baby,  a  larger  house  to  care  for,  all  the 
telephone  calls  for  Kennicott  when  he  was  away;  and  she 
read  everything,  while  Vida  was  satisfied  with  newspaper  head 
lines. 

But  after  detached  brown  years  in  boarding-houses,  Vida 
was  hungry  for  housework,  for  the  most  pottering  detail  of  it. 
She  had  no  maid,  nor  wanted  one.  She  cooked,  baked,  swept, 
washed  supper-cloths,  with  the  triumph  of  a  chemist  in  a  new 
laboratory.  To  her  the  hearth  was  veritably  the  altar.  When 
she  went  shopping  she  hugged  the  cans  of  soup,  and  she 
bought  a  mop  or  a  side  of  bacon  as  though  she  were  preparing 
for  a  reception.  She  knelt  beside  a  bean  sprout  and  crooned, 
"  I  raised  this  with  my  own  hands — I  brought  this  new  life 
into  the  world." 

"  I  love  her  for  being  so  happy,"  Carol  brooded.  "  I  ought 

to  be  that  way.  I  worship  the  baby,  but  the  housework 

Oh,  I  suppose  I'm  fortunate;  so  much  better  off  than  farm- 
women  on  a  new  clearing,  or  people  in  a  slum." 

It  has  not  yet  been  recorded  that  any  human  being  has 
gained  a  very  large  or  permanent  contentment  from  medita 
tion  upon  the  fact  that  he  is  better  off  than  others. 

In  Carol's  own  twenty-four  hours  a  day  she  got  up,  dressed 
the  baby,  had  breakfast,  talked  to  Oscarina  about  the  day's 
shopping,  put  the  baby  on  the  porch  to  play,  went  to  the 
butcher's  to  choose  between  steak  and  pork  chops,  bathed  the 
baby,  nailed  up  a  shelf,  had  dinner,  put  the  baby  to  bed  for  a 
nap,  paid  the  iceman,  read  for  an  hour,  took  the  baby 
out  for  a  walk,  called  on  Vida,  had  supper,  put  the  baby  to 
bed,  darned  socks,  listened  to  Kennicott's  yawning  comment 

262 


MAIN   STREET  263 

on  what  a  fool  Dr.  McGanum  was  to  try  to  use  that  cheap 
X-  ray  outfit  of  his  on  an  epithelioma,  repaired  a  frock,  drowsily 
heu-H  Kennicott  stoke  the  furnace,  tried  to  read  a  page  of 
Thorstein  Veblen — and  the  day  was  gone. 

Excepc  when  Hugh  was  vigorously  naughty,  or  whiney,  or 
laughing,  or  saying  "  I  like  my  chair  "  with  thrilling  ma 
turity,  she  was  always  enfeebled  by  loneliness.  She  no  longer 
felt  superior  about  that  misfortune.  She  would  gladly  have 
been  converted  to  Vida's  satisfaction  in  Gopher  Prairie  and 
mopping  the  floor. 


n 

Carol  drove  through  an  astonishing  number  of  books  from 
the  public  library  and  from  city  shops.  Kennicott  was  at 
first  uncomfortable  over  her  disconcerting  habit  of  buying 
them.  A  book  was  a  book,  and  if  you  had  several  thousand 
of  them  right  here  in  the  library,  free,  why  the  dickens  should 
you  spend  your  good  money?  After  worrying  about  it  for 
two  or  three  years,  he  decided  that  this  was  one  of  the  Funny 
Ideas  which  she  had  caught  as  a  librarian  and  from  which 
she  would  never  entirely  recover. 

The  authors  whom  she  read  were  most  of  them  frightfully 
annoyed  by  the  Vida  Sherwins.    They  were  young  American 
sociologists,  young  English  realists,  Russian  horrorists ;  Anatole 
France,  Rolland,  Nexo,  Wells,  Shaw,  Key,  Edgar  Lee  Masters, 
Theodore  Dreiser,  Sherwood  Anderson,  Henry  Mencken,  and 
all  the  other  subversive  philosophers  and  artists  whom  women 
were   consulting   everywhere,   in   batik-curtained   studios   in 
New  York,  in  Kansas  farmhouses,  San  Francisco  drawing-  f 
rooms,  Alabama  schools  for  negroes.     From  them  she  got-J 
the  same  confused  desire  which   the  million  other  women    * 
felt;   the  same  determination  to  be  class-conscious  without 
discovering  the  class  of  which  she  was  to  be  conscious. 

Certainly  her  reading  precipitated  her  observations  of  Main 
Street,  of  Gopher  Prairie  and  of  the  several  adjacent  Gopher 
Prairies  which  she  had  seen  on  drives  with  Kennicott.  In 
her  fluid  thought  certain  convictions  appeared,  jaggedly,  a 
fragment  of  an  impression  at  a  time,  while  she  was  going  to 
sleep,  or  manicuring  her  nails,  or  waiting  for  Kennicott. 

These  convictions  she  presented  to  Vida  Sherwin — Vida 
Wutherspoon — beside  a  radiator,  over  a  bowl  of  not  very  good 


264  MAIN   STREET 

walnuts  and  pecans  from  Uncle  Whittier's  grocery,  on  an 
evening  when  both  Kennicott  and  Raymie  had  gone  out  of 
town  with  the  other  officers  of  the  Ancient  and  Affiliated /\aei 
of  Spartans,  to  inaugurate  a  new  chapter  at  Wakamin.  Vida 
had  come  to  the  house  for  the  night.  She  helped  ir  putting 
Hugh  to  bed,  sputtering  the  while  about  his  soft  skin.  Then 
they  talked  till  midnight. 

What  Carol  said  that  evening,  what  she  was  passionately 
thinking,  was  also  emerging  in  the  minds  of  women  in  ten 
thousand  Gopher  Prairies.  Her  formulations  were  not  pat 
solutions  but  visions  of  a  tragic  futility.  She  did  not  utter 
them  so  compactly  that  they  can  be  given  in  her  words;  they 
were  roughened  with  "  Well,  you  see  "  and  "  if  you  get  what 
I  mean  "  and  "  I  don't  know  that  I'm  making  myself  clear." 
But  they  were  definite  enough,  and  indignant  enough. 


m 

In  reading  popular  stories  and  seeing  plays,  asserted  Carol, 

she  had  found  only  two  traditions  of  the  American  small  town. 

The  first  tradition,  repeated  in  scores  of  magazines  every  month, 

>is  that  the  American  village  remains  the  one  sure  abode  of 

;  friendship,  honesty,  and  clean  sweet  marriageable  girls.    There- 

•!  fore  all  men  who  succeed  in  painting  in  Paris  or  in  finance  in 

New  York  at  last  become  weary  of  smart  women,  return 

to  their  native  towns,  assert  that  cities  are  vicious,  marry 

their  childhood  sweethearts  and,  presumably,  joyously  abide 

in  those  towns  until  death. 

The  other  tradition  is  that  the  significant  features  of  all 
villages  are  whiskers,  iron  dogs  upon  lawns,  gold  bricks, 
checkers,  jars  of  gilded  cat-tails,  and  shrewd  comic  old  men 
:  who  are  known  as  "  hicks  "  and  who  ejaculate  "  Waal  I  swan." 
This  altogether  admirable  tradition  rules  the  vaudeville  stage, 
facetious  illustrators,  and  syndicated  newspaper  humor,  but 
out  of  actual  life  it  rj^ssecLJorty  years  ago.  Carol's  small 
town  thinks  not  in  hoss-swapping  but  in  cheap  motor  cars, 
telephones^  ready-made  clothes,  silos,  alfalfa,  kodaks,  phono 
graphs,  leather-upholstered  Morris  chairs,,  bridge-prizes,  oil- 
stocks,  motion-pictures,  land-deals,  unread  sets  of  Mark 
Twain,  and  a  chaste  version  of  national  politics. 

With  such  a  small- town  life  a  Kennicott  or  a  Champ  Perry 
is  content,  but  there  are  also  hundreds  of  thousands,  par- 


MAIN   STREET  265 

ticularly  women  and  young  men,  who  are  not  at  all  content 
The  more  intelligent  young  people  (and  the  fortunate  widows! ) 
flee  to  the  cities  with  agility  and,  despite  the  fictional  tra 
dition,  resolutely  stay  there,  seldom  returning  even  for  holi 
days.  The  most  protesting  patriots  of  the  towns  leave  them 
in  old  age,  if  they  can  afford  it,  and  go  to  live  in  California 
or  in  the  cities. 

The  reason,  Carol  insisted,  is  not  a  whiskered  rusticity.  It 
is  nothing  so  amusing! 

It  is  an  unimaginatively  standardized  background,  a  slug 
gishness  of  speech  and  manners,  a  rigid  ruling  of  the  spirit 
by  the  desire  to  appear  respectable.  It  is  contentment  .  .  . 
the  contentment  of  the  quiet  dead,  who  are  scornful  of  the 
living  for  their  restless  walking.  It  is  negation  canonized 
as  the  one  positive  virtue.  It  is  the  prohibition  of  happiness. 
It  is  slavery  self-sought  and  self-defended.  It  is  dullness 
made  God. 

A  savorless  people,  gulping  tasteless  food,  and  sitting  after 
ward,  coatless  and  thoughtless,  in  rocking-chairs  prickly  with 
inane  decorations,  listening  to  mechanical  music,  saying  me 
chanical  things  about  the  excellence  of  Ford  automobiles,  and 
viewing  themselves  as  the  greatest  race  in  the  world. 


IV 

She  had  inquired  as  to  the  effect  of  this  dominating  dull 
ness  upon  foreigners.  She  remembered  the  feeble  exotic 
quality  to  be  found  in  the  first-generation  Scandinavians;  she 
recalled  the  Norwegian  Fair  at  the  Lutheran  Church,  to 
which  Bea  had  taken  her.  There,  in  the  bondestue,  the  replica 
of  a  Norse  farm  kitchen,  pale  women  in  scarlet  jackets  em 
broidered  with  gold  thread  and  colored  beads,  in  black  skirts 
with  a  line  of  blue,  green-striped  aprons,  and  ridged  caps  very 
pretty  to  set  off  a  fresh  face,  had  served  rommegrod  og  lefse — 
sweet  cakes  and  sour  milk  pudding  spiced  with  cinnamon. 
For  the  first  time  in  Gopher  Prairie  Carol  had  found  novelty. 
She  had  reveled  in  the  mild  foreignness  of  it. 

But  she  saw  these  Scandinavian  women  zealously  exchanging 
their  spiced  puddings  and  red  jackets  for  fried  pork  chops 
and  congealed  white  blouses,  trading  the  ancient  Christmas 
hymns  of  the  fjords  for  "  She's  My  Jazzland  Cutie,"  being 
Americanized  into  uniformity,  and  in  less  than  a  generation 


266  MAIN   STREET 

losing  in  the  grayness  whatever  pleasant  new  customs  they 
might  have  added  to  the  life  of  the  town.  Tbeir  sons  finished 
the  process.  In  ready-made  clothes  and  ready-made  high- 
school  phrases  they  sank  into  propriety,  and  the  sound  Amer 
ican  customs  had  absorbed  without  one  trace  of  pollution  an 
other  alien  invasion. 

And  along  with  these  foreigners,  she  felt  herself  being  ironed 
into  glossy  mediocrity,  and  she  rebelled,  in  fear. 

The  respectability  of  the  Gopher  Prairies,  said  Carol,  is 
reinforced  by  vows  of  poverty  and  chastity  in  the  matter  of 
knowledge.  Except  for  half  a  dozen  in  each  town  the  citizens 
are  proud  of  that  achievement  of  ignorance  which  it  is  so  easy 
to  come  by.  To  be  "  intellectual  "  or  "  artistic  "  or,  in  their 
own  word,  to  be  "  highbrow,"  is  to  be  priggish  and  of  dubious 
virtue. 

Large  experiments  in  politics  and  in  co-operative  distribution, 
ventures  requiring  knowledge,  courage,  and  imagination,  do 
originate  in  the  West  and  Middlewest,  but  they  are  not  of 
the  towns,  they  are  of  the  farmers.  If  these  heresies  are 
supported  by  the  townsmen  it  is  only  by  occasional  teachers, 
doctors,  lawyers,  the  labor  unions,  and  workmen  like  Miles 
Bjornstam,  who  are  punished  by  being  mocked  as  "  cranks," 
as  "  half-baked  parlor  socialists."  The  editor  and  the  rector 
preach  at  them.  The  cloud  of  serene  ignorance  submerges 
them  in  unhappiness  and  futility. 


Here  Vida  observed,  "Yes — well Do  you  know,  I've 

always  thought  that  Ray  would  have  made  a  wonderful  rector. 
He  has  what  I  call  an  essentially  religious  soul.  My!  He'd 
have  read  the  service  beautifully!  I  suppose  it's  too  late  now, 
but  as  I  tell  him,  he  can  also  serve  the  world  by  selling  shoes 
and I  wonder  if  we  oughtn't  to  have  family-prayers?  " 


VI 

Doubtless  all  small  towns,  in  all  countries,  in  all  ages, 
Carol  admitted,  have  a  tendency  to  be  not  only  dull  but 
mean,  bitter,  infested  with  curiosity.  In  France  or  Tibet  quite 
as  much  as  in  Wyoming  or  Indiana  these  timidities  are  in 
herent  in  isolation. 


MAIN   STREET  267 

But  a  village  in  a  country  which  is  taking  pains  to  become 
altogether  standardized  and  pure,  which  aspires  to  succeed 
Victorian  England  as  the  chief  mediocrity  of  the  world,  is  no 
longer  merely  provincial,  no  longer  downy  and  restful  in  its 
leaf-shadowed  ignorance.  It  is  a  force  seeking  to  dominate 
the  earth,  to  drain  the  hills  and  sea  of  color,  to  set  Dante  at 
boosting  Gopher  Prairie,  and  to  dress  the  high  gods  in 
Klassy  Kollege  Klothes.  Sure  of  itself,  it  bullies  other  civiliza 
tions,  as  a  traveling  salesman  in  a  brown  derby  conquers  the 
wisdom  of  China  and  tacks  advertisements  of  cigarettes  over 
arches  for  centuries  dedicate  to  the  sayings  of  Confucius. 

Such  a  society  functions  admirably  in  the  large  production 
of  cheap  automobiles,  dollar  watches,  and  safety  razors.  But 
it  is  not  satisfied  until  the  entire  world  also  admits  that  the 
end  and  joyous  purpose  of  living  is  to  ride  in  flivvers,  to  make 
advertising-pictures  of  dollar  watches,  and  in  the  twilight  to 
sit  talking  not  of  love  and  courage  but  of  the  convenience 
of  safety  razors. 

And  such  a  society,  such  a  nation,  is  determined  by  the 
Gopher  Prairies.  The  greatest  manufacturer  is  but  a  busier 
Sam  Clark,  and  all  the  rotund  senators  and  presidents  arc 
village  lawyers  and  bankers  grown  nine  feet  tall. 

Though  a  Gopher  Prairie  regards  itself  as  a  part  of  the  Great 
Would,  compares  itself  to  Rome  and  Vienna,  it  will  not  acquire 
the  scientific  spirit,  the  international  mind,  which  would  make 
it  great.  It  picks  at  information  which  will  visibly  procure 
money  or  social  distinction.  Its  conception  of  a  community 
ideal  is  not  the  grand  manner,  the  noble  aspiration,  the  fine 
aristocratic  pride,  but  cheap  labor  for  the  kitchen  and  rapid 
increase  in  the  price  of  land.  It  plays  at  cards  on  greasy  oil 
cloth  in  a  shanty,  and  does  not  know  that  prophets  are  walking 
and  talking  on  the  terrace. 

If  all  the  provincials  were  as  kindly  as  Champ  Perry  and 
Sam  Clark  there  would  be  no  reason  for  desiring  the  town 
to  seek  great  traditions.  It  is  the  Harry  Hay  docks,  the  Dave 
Dyers,  the  Jackson  Elders,  small  busy  men  crushingly  powerful 
in  their  common  purpose,  viewing  themselves  as  men  of  the 
world  but  keeping  themselves  men  of  the  cash-register  and 
the  comic  film,  who  make  the  town  a  sterile  oligarchy. 


268  MAIN   STREET 

vn 

She  had  sought  to  be  definite  in  analyzing  the  suriace  ugli 
ness  of  the  Gopher  Prairies.  She  asserted  that  it  is  a  matter 
of  universal  similarity;  of  flimsiness  of  construction,  so  that 
the  towns  resemble  frontier  camps;  of  neglect  of  natural  ad 
vantages,  so  that  the  hills  are  covered  with  brush,  the  lakes 
shut  off  by  railroads,  and  the  creeks  lined  with  dumping- 
grounds;  of  depressing  sobriety  of  color;  rectangularity  of 
buildings ;  and  excessive  breadth  and  straightness  of  the  gashed 
streets,  so  that  there  is  no  escape  from  gales_and  from  sight 
of  the  grim  sweep  of  land,  nor  any  windings  to  coax  the 
loiterer  along,  while  the  breadth  which  would  be  majestic  in 
an  avenue  of  palaces  makes  the  low  shabby  shops  creeping 
down  the  typical  Main  Street  the  more  mean  by  comparison. 

The  universal  similarity — that  is  the  physical  expression  of 
the  philosophy  of  dull  safety.  Nine-tenths  of  the  American 
towns  are  so  alike  that  it  is  the  completest  boredom  to  wander 
from  one  to  another.  Always,  west  of  Pittsburg,  and  often, 
east  of  it,  there  is  the  same  lumber  yard,  the  same  railroad 
station,  the  same  Ford  garage,  the  same  creamery,  the  same 
box-like  houses  and  two-story  shops.  The  new,  more  conscious 
houses  are  alike  in  their  very  attempts  at  diversity:  the  same 
bungalows,  the  same  square  houses  of  stucco  or  tapestry  brick. 
The  shops  show  the  same  standardized,  nationally  advertised 
wares;  the  newspapers  of  sections  three  thousand  miles  apart 
have  the  same  "  syndicated  features  " ;  the  boy  in  Arkansas 
displays  just  such  a  flamboyant  ready-made  suit  as  is  found 
on  just  such  a  boy  in  Delaware,  both  of  them  iterate  the  same 
slang  phrases  from  the  same  sporting-pages,  and  if  one  of  them 
is  in  college  and  the  other  is  a  barber,  no  one  may  surmise  which 
is  which. 

If  Kennicott  were  snatched  from  Gopher  Prairie  and  in 
stantly  conveyed  to  a  town  leagues  away,  he  would  not  realize 
it.  He  would  go  down  apparently  the  same  Main  Street 
(almost  certainly  it  would  be  called  Main  Street);  in  the 
same  drug  store  he  would  see  the  same  young  man  serving 
the  same  ice-cream  soda  to  the  same  young  woman  with  the 
same  magazines  and  phonograph  records  under  her  arm.  Not 
till  he  had  climbed  to  his  office  and  found  another  sign  on 
the  door,  another  Dr.  Kennicott  inside,  would  he  understand 
that  something  curious  had  presumably  happened. 


MAIN  STREET  269 

Finally,  behind  all  her  comments,  Carol  saw  the  fact  that  the 
prairie  towns  no  more  exist  to  serve  the  farmers  who  are 
their  reason  of  existence  than  do  the  great  capitals;  they 
exist  to  fatten  on  the  farmers,  to  provide  for  the  townsmen 
large  motors  and  social  preferment;  and,  unlike  the  capitals, 
they  do  not  give  to  the  district  in  return  for  usury  a  stately 
and  permanent  center,  but  only  this  ragged  camp.  It  is  a 
"  parasitic  Greek  civilization  " — minus  the  civilization. 

"There  we  are  then,"  said  Carol.  "The  remedy?  Is 
there  any?  Criticism,  perhaps,  for  the  beginning  of  the 
beginning.  Oh,  there's  nothing  that  attacks  the  Tribal  God 
Mediocrity  that  doesn't  help  a  little  .  .  .  and  probably 
there's  nothing  that  helps  very  much.  Perhaps  some  day  the 
farmers  will  build  and  own  their  market- towns.  (Think  of 
the  club  they  could  have!)  But  I'm  afraid  I  haven't  any 
'  reform  program.'  Not  any  more!  The  trouble  is  spiritual, 
and  no  League  or  Party  can  enact  a  preference  for  gardens 
rather  than  dumping-grounds.  .  .  .  There's  my  confes 
sion.  Well?" 

"  In  other  words,  all  you  want  is  perfection?  "  said  Vida. 

"Yes!     Why  not?" 

"How  you  hate  this  place!  How  can  you  expect  to  do 
anything  with  it  if  you  haven't  any  sympathy?  " 

"  But  I  have!  And  affection.  Or  else  I  wouldn't  fume 
so.  I've  learned  that  Gopher  Prairie  isn't  just  an  eruption 
on  the  prairie,  as  I  thought  first,  but  as  large  as  New  York. 
In  New  York  I  wouldn't  know  more  than  forty  or  fifty  people, 
and  I  know  that  many  here.  Go  on!  Say  what  you're 
thinking." 

"Well,  my  dear,  if  I  did  take  all  your  notions  seriously, 
it  would  be  pretty  discouraging.  Imagine  how  a  person 
would  feel,  after  working  hard  for  years  and  helping  to  build 
up  a  nice  town,  to  have  you  airily  flit  in  and  simply  say 
'  Rotten!  '  Think  that's  fair?  " 

"  Why  not?  It  must  be  just  as  discouraging  for  the  Gopher 
Prairieite  to  see  Venice  and  make  comparisons." 

"It  would  not!     I  imagine  gondolas  are  kind  of  nice  to     J[ 

ride  in,  but  we've  got  better  bath-rooms!     But My  dear, 

you're  not  the  only  person  in  this  town  who  has  done  some 
thinking  for  herself,  although  (pardon  my  rudeness)  I'm 
afraid  you  think  so.  I'll  admit  we  lack  some  things.  Maybe 
our  theater  isn't  as  good  as  shows  in  Paris.  All  right!  I  don't 


270  MAIN   STREET 

want  to  see  any  foreign  culture  suddenly  forced  on  us — whether 
it's  street-planning  or  table-manners  or  crazy  communistic 
ideas." 

Vida  sketched  what  she  termed  "  practical  things  that  will 
make  a  happier  and  prettier  town,  but  that  do  belong  to  our 
life,  that  actually  are  being  done."  Of  the  Thanatopsis  Club 
she  spoke;  of  the  rest-room,  the  fight  against  mosquitos,  the 
campaign  for  more  gardens  and  shade-trees  and  sewers — 
matters  not  fantastic  and  nebulous  and  distant,  but  immediate 
and  sure. 

Carol's  answer  was  fantastic  and  nebulous  enough: 

"  Yes.  .  .  .  Yes.  ...  I  know.  They're  good. 
But  if  I  could  put  through  all  those  reforms  at  once,  I'd  still 
want  startling,  exotic  things.  Life  is  comfortable  and  clean 
enough  here  already.  And  so  secure.  What  it  needs  is  to  be 
less  secure,  more  eager.  The  civic  improvements  which  I'd 
like  the  Thanatopsis  to  advocate  are  Strindberg  plays,  and 
classic  dancers — exquisite  legs  beneath  tulle — and  (I  can  see 
him  so  clearly!)  a  thick,  black-bearded,  cynical  Frenchman 
who  would  sit  about  and  drink  and  sing  opera  and  tell  bawdy 
stories  and  laugh  at  our  proprieties  and  quote  Rabelais  and 
not  be  ashamed  to  kiss  my  hand!  " 

"Huh!  Not  sure  about  the  rest  of  it  but  I  guess  that's 
what  you  and  all  the  other  discontented  young  women  really 
want:  some  stranger  kissing  your  hand!  "  At  Carol's  gasp,  the 
old  squirrrel-like  Vida  darted  out  and  cried,  "  Oh,  my  dear, 
don't  take  that  too  seriously.  I  just  meant " 

"  I  know.  You  just  meant  it.  Go  on.  Be  good  for  my 
soul.  Isn't  it  funny:  here  we  all  are — me  trying  to  be  good 
for  Gopher  Prairie's  soul,  and  Gopher  Prairie  trying  to  be 
good  for  my  soul.  What  are  my  other  sins?  " 

"  Oh,  there's  plenty  of  them.  Possibly  some  day  we  shall 
have  your  fat  cynical  Frenchman  (horrible,  sneering,  tobacco- 
stained  object,  ruining  his  brains  and  his  digestion  with  vile 
liquor!)  but,  thank  heaven,  for  a  while  we'll  manage  to  keep 
busy  with  our  lawns  and  pavements!  You  see,  these  things 
really  are  coming!  The  Thanatopsis  is  getting  somewhere. 

And  you "  Her  tone  italicized  the  words — "  to  my  great 

disappointment,  are  doing  less,  not  more,  than  the  people 
you  laugh  at!  Sam  Clark,  on  the  school-board,  is  working 
for  better  school  ventilation.  Ella  Stowbody  (whose  elocuting 
you  always  think  is  so  absurd)  has  persuaded  the  railroad 


MAIN   STREET  271 

to  share  the  expense  of  a  parked  space  at  "the  station,  to 
do  away  with  that  vacant  lot. 

"You  sneer  so  easily.  I'm  sorry,  but  I  do  think  there's 
something  essentially  cheap  in  your  attitude.  Especially  about 
religion.  V 

"  If  you  must  know,  you're  not  a  sound  reformer  at  all. 
You're  an  imposnibilist.  And  you  give  up  too  easily.  You 
gave  up  on  the  new  city  hall,  the  anti-fly  campaign,  club  papers, 
the  library-board,  the  dramatic  association — just  because  we 
didn't  graduate  into  Ibsen  the  very  first  thing.  You  want  per 
fection  all  at  once.  Do  you  know  what  the  finest  thing  you've 
done  is — aside  from  bringing  Hugh  into  the  world?  It  was 
the  help  you  gave  Dr.  Will  during  baby-welfare  week.  You 
didn't  demand  that  each  baby  be  a  philosopher  and  artist 
before  you  weighed  him,  as  you  do  with  the  rest  of  us. 

"  And  now  I'm  afraid  perhaps  I'll  hurt  you.  We're  going 
to  have  a  new  schoolbuilding  in  this  town — in  just  a  few 
years — and  we'll  have  it  without  one  bit  of  help  or  interest 
from  you! 

"  Professor  Mott  and  I  and  some  others  have  been  dinging 
away  at  the  moneyed  men  for  years.  We  didn't  call  on 
you  because  you  would  never  stand  the  pound-pound-pounding 
year  after  year  without  one  bit  of  encouragement.  And  we've 
won!  I've  got  the  promise  of  everybody  who  counts  that 
just  as  soon  as  war-conditions  permit,  they'll  vote  the  bonds 
for  the  schoolhouse.  And  we'll  have  a  wonderful  building — 
lovely  brown  brick,  with  big  windows,  and  agricultural  and 
manual-training  departments.  When  we  get  it,  that'll  be  my 
answer  to  all  your  theories!  " 

"  I'm  glad.  And  I'm  ashamed  I  haven't  had  any  part  in 

getting  it.  But Please  don't  think  I'm  unsympathetic 

if  I  ask  one  question:  Will  the  teachers  in  the  hygienic  new 
building  go  on  informing  the  children  that  Persia  is  a  yellow 
spot  on  the  map,  and  *  Caesar '  the  title  of  a  book  of  gram 
matical  puzzles?  " 


vra 

Vida  was  indignant;  Carol  was  apologetic;  they  talked  for 
another  hour,  the  eternal  Mary  and  Martha — an  immoralist 
Mary  and  a  reformist  Martha.  It  was  Vida  who  conquered. 

The  fact  that  she  had  been  left  out  of  the  campaign  for  the 


272  MAIN   STREET 

new  schoolbuilding  disconcerted  Carol.  She  laid  her  dreams 
of  perfection  aside.  When  Vida  asked  her  to  take  charge  of 
a  group  of  Camp  Fire  Girls,  she  obeyed,  and  had  definite 
pleasure  out  of  the  Indian  dances  and  ritual  and  costumes.  She 
went  more  regularly  to  the  Thanatopsis.  With  Vida  as  lieu 
tenant  and  unofficial  commander  she  campaigned  for  a  village 
nurse  to  attend  poor  families,  raised  the  fund  herself,  saw  to 
it  that  the  nurse  was  young  and  strong  and  amiable  and 
intelligent. 

Yet  all  the  while  she  beheld  the  burly  cynical  Frenchman 
and  the  diaphanous  dancers  as  clearly  as  the  child  sees  its 
air-born  playmates;  she  relished  the  Camp  Fire  Girls  not 
because,  in  Vida's  words,  "  this  Scout  training  will  help  so 
much  to  make  them  Good  Wives,"  but  because  she  hoped 
that  the  Sioux  dances  would  bring  subversive  color  into  their 
dinginess. 

She  helped  Ella  Stowbody  to  set  out  plants  in  the  tiny 
triangular  park  at  the  railroad  station;  she  squatted  in  the 
dirt,  with  a  small  curved  trowel  and  the  most  decorous  of 
gardening  gauntlets;  she  talked  to  Ella  about  the  public- 
spiritedness  of  fuchsias  and  cannas;  and  she  felt  that  she  was 
scrubbing  a  temple  deserted  by  the  gods  and  empty  even  of 
incense  and  the  sound  of  chanting.  Passengers  looking  from 
trains  saw  her  as  a  village  woman  of  fading  prettiness,  in 
corruptible  virtue,  and  no  abnormalities;  the  baggageman 
heard  her  say,  "  Oh  yes,  I  do  think  it  will  be  a  good  example 
for  the  children";  and  all  the  while  she  saw  herself  running 
garlanded  through  the  streets  of  Babylon. 

Planting  led  her  to  botanizing.  She  never  got  much  farther 
than  recognizing  the  tiger  lily  and  the  wild  rose,  but  she  re 
discovered  Hugh.  "  What  does  the  buttercup  say,  mummy?  " 
he  cried,  his  hand  full  of  straggly  grasses,  his  cheek  gilded  with 
pollen.  She  knelt  to  embrace  him;  she  affirmed  that  he  made 
life  more  than  full;  she  was  altogether  reconciled  .  .  . 
for  an  hour. 

But  she  awoke  at  night  to  hovering  death.  She  crept  away 
from  the  hump  of  bedding  that  was  Kennicott;  tiptoed  into 
the  bathroom  and,  by  the  mirror  in  the  door  of  the  medicine- 
cabinet,  examined  her  pallid  face. 

Wasn't  she  growing  visibly  older  in  ratio  as  Vida  grew 
plumper  and  younger?  Wasn't  her  nose  sharper?  Wasn't 
her  neck  granulated?  She  stared  and  choked.  She  was  only 


MAIN   STREET  273 

thirty.  But  the  five  years  since  her  marriage — had  they  not 
gone  by  as  hastily  and  stupidly  as  though  she  had  been  under 
ether;  would  time  not  slink  past  till  death?  She  pounded  her 
fist  on  the  cool  enameled  rim  of  the  bathtub  and  raged  mutely 
against  the  indifferent  gods: 

"I  don't  care!  I  won't  endure  it!  They  lie  so— Vida 
and  Will  and  Aunt  Bessie — they  tell  me  I  ought  to  be  satisfied 
with  Hugh  and  a  good  home  and  planting  seven  nasturtiums 
in  a  station  garden!  I  am  I!  When  I  die  the  world  will  be 
annihilated,  as  far  as  I'm  concerned.  I  am  I!  I'm  not 
content  to  leave  the  sea  and  the  ivory  towers  to  others.  I 
want  them  for  me!  Damn  Vida!  Damn  all  of  them!  Do 
they  think  they  can  make  me  believe  that  a  display  of  potatoes 
at  Rowland  &  Gould's  is  enough  beauty  and  strangeness?  " 


CHAPTER  XXIIX 


WHEN  America  entered  the  Great  European  War,  Vida  sent 
Raymie  off  to  an  officers'  training-camp — less  than  a  year  after 
her  wedding.  Raymie  was  diligent  and  rather,  strong.  He 
came  out  a  first  lieutenant  of  infantry,  and  was  one  of  the 
earliest  sent  abroad. 

Carol  grew  definitely  afraid  of  Vida  as  Vida  transferred 
the  passion  which  had  been  released  in  marriage  to  the  cause 
of  the  war ;  as  she  lost  all  tolerance.  When  Carol  was  touched 
by  the  desire  for  heroism  in  Raymie  and  tried  tactfully  to 
express  it,  Vida  made  her  feel  like  an  impertinent  child. 

By  enlistment  and  draft,  the  sons  of  Lyman  Cass,  Nat 
Hicks,  Sam  Clark  joined  the  army.  But  most  of  the  soldiers 
were  the  sons  of  German  and  Swedish  farmers  unknown  to 
Carol.  Dr.  Terry  Gould  and  Dr.  McGanum  became  captains 
in  the  medical  corps,  and  were  stationed  at  camps  in  Iowa  and 
Georgia.  They  were  the  only  officers,  besides  Raymie,  from 
the  Gopher  Prairie  district.  Kennicott  wanted  to  go  with 
them,  but  the  several  doctors  of  the  town  forgot  medical 
rivalry  and,  meeting  in  council,  decided  that  he  would  do 
better  to  wait  and  keep  the  town  well  till  he  should  be  needed. 
Kennicott  was  forty- two  now;  the  only  youngish  doctor  left 
in  a  radius  of  eighteen  miles.  Old  Dr.  Westlake,  who  loved 
comfort  like  a  cat,  protestingly  rolled  out  at  night  for  country 
calls,  and  hunted  through  his  collar-box  for  his  G.  A.  R.  button. 

Carol  did  not  quite  know  what  she  thought  about  Kennicott's 
going.  Certainly  she  was  no  Spartan  wife.  She  knew  that 
he  wanted  to  go;  she  knew  that  this  longing  was  always  in 
him,  behind  his  unchanged  trudging  and  remarks  about  the 
weather.  She  felt  for  him  an  admiring  affection — and  she 
was  sorry  that  she  had  nothing  more  than  affection. 

Cy  Bogart  was  the  spectacular  warrior  of  the  town.  Cy 
was  no  longer  the  weedy  boy  who  had  sat  in  the  loft  specu 
lating  about  Carol's  egotism  and  the  mysteries  of  generation. 
He  was  nineteen  now,  tall,  broad,  busy,  the  "  town  sport," 

274 


MAIN   STREET  275 

famous  for  his  ability  to  drink  beer,  to  shake  dice,  to  tell 
undesirable  stories,  and,  from  his  post  in  front  of  Dyer's  drug 
store,  to  embarrass  the  girls  by  "  jollying  "  them  as  they  passed. 
His  face  was  at  once  peach-bloomed  and  pimply. 

Cy  was  to  be  heard  publishing  it  abroad  that  if  he  couldn't 
get  the  Widow  Bogart 's  permission  to  enlist,  he'd  run  away 
and  enlist  without  it.  He  shouted  that  he  "  hated  every  dirty 
Hun;  by  gosh,  if  he  could  just  poke  a  bayonet  into  one  big 
fat  Heinie  and  learn  him  some  decency  and  democracy,  he'd 
die  happy."  Cy  got  much  reputation  by  whipping  a  farmboy 
named  Adolph  Pochbauer  for  being  a  "  damn  hyphenated  Ger 
man."  .  .  .  This  was  the  younger  Pochbauer,  who  was 
killed  in  the  Argonne,  while  he  was  trying  to  bring  the  body 
of  his  Yankee  captain  back  to  the  lines.  At  this  time  Cy  Bogart 
was  still  dwelling  in  Gopher  Prairie  and  planning  to  go  to 
war. 


n 

Everywhere  Carol  heard  that  the  war  was  going  to  bring 
a  basic  change  in  psychology,  to  purify  and  uplift  everything 
from  marital  relations  to  national  politics,  and  she  tried  to 
exult  in  it.  Only  she  did  not  find  it.  She  saw  the  women  who 
made  bandages  for  the  Red  Cross  giving  up  bridge,  and 
laughing  at  having  to  do  without  sugar,  but  over  the  surgical- 
dressings  they  did  not  speak  of  God  and  the  souls  of  men, 
but  of  Miles  Bjornstam's  impudence,  of  Terry  Gould's  scan 
dalous  carryings-on  with  a  farmer's  daughter  four  years  ago, 
of  cooking  cabbage,  and  of  altering  blouses.  Their  refer 
ences  to  the  war  touched  atrocities  only.  She  herself  was 
punctual,  and  efficient  at  making  dressings,  but  she  could  not, 
like  Mrs.  Lyman  Cass  and  Mrs.  Bogart,  fill  the  dressings 
with  hate  for  enemies. 

When  she  protested  to  Vida,  "  The  young  do  the  work  while 
these  old  ones  sit  around  and  interrupt  us  and  gag  with  hate 
because  they're  too  feeble  to  do  anything  but  hate,"  then 
Vida  turned  on  her: 

"  If  you  can't  be  reverent,  at  least  don't  be  so  pert  and 
opinionated,  now  when  men  and  women  are  dying.  Some  of 
us — we  have  given  up  so  much,  and  we're  glad  to.  At  least 
we  expect  that  you  others  sha'u't  try  to  be  witty  at  our 
expense." 


276  MAIN   STREET 

There  was  weeping. 

Carol  did  desire  to  see  the  Prussian  autocracy  defeated; 
she  did  persuade  herself  that  there  were  no  autocracies  save 
that  of  Prussia;  she  did  thrill  to  motion-pictures  of  troops 
embarking  in  New  York;  and  she  was  uncomfortable  when  she 
met  Miles  Bjornstam  on  the  street  and  he  croaked: 

"How's  tricks?  Things  going  fine  with  me;  got  two  new 
cows.  Well,  have  you  become  a  patriot?  Eh?  Sure,  they'll 
bring  democracy — the  democracy  of  death.  Yes,  sure,  in  every 
war  since  the  Garden  of  Eden  the  workmen  have  gone  out  to 
fight  each  other  for  perfectly  good  reasons — handed  to  them 
by  their  bosses.  Now  me,  I'm  wise.  I'm  so  wise  that  I  know 
I  don't  know  anything  about  the  war." 

It  was  not  a  thought  of  the  war  that  remained  with  her 
after  Miles's  declamation  but  a  perception  that  she  and  Vida 
and  all  of  the  good-intentioners  who  wanted  to  "  do  some 
thing  for  the  common  people  "  were  insignificant,  because  the 
"  common  people "  were  able  to  do  things  for  themselves, 
and  highly  likely  to,  as  soon  as  they  learned  the  fact.  The 
conception  of  millions  of  workmen  like  Miles  taking  control 
frightened  her,  and  she  scuttled  rapidly  away  from  the  thought 
of  a  time  when  she  might  no  longer  retain  the  position  of 
Lady  Bountiful  to  the  Bjornstams  and  Beas  and  Oscarinas 
whom  she  loved — and  patronized. 


m 

It  was  in  June,  two  months  after  America's  entrance  into 
the  war,  that  the  momentous  event  happened — the  visit  of 
the  great  Percy  Bresnahan,  the  millionaire  president  of  the 
Velvet  Motor  Car  Company  of  Boston,  the  one  native  son 
who  was  always  to  be  mentioned  to  strangers. 

For  two  weeks  there  were  rumors.  Sam  Clark  cried  to 
Kennicott,  "  Say,  I  hear  Perce  Bresnahan  is  coming!  By 
golly  it'll  be  great  to  see  the  old  scout,  eh?  "  Finally  the 
Dauntless  printed,  on  the  front  page  with  a  No.  i  head,  a  letter 
from  Bresnahan  to  Jackson  Elder: 

DEAR  JACK: 

Well,  Jack,  I  find  I  can  make  it.  I'm  to  go  to  Washington  as  a 
dollar  a  year  man  for  the  government,  in  the  aviation  motor  section, 
and  tell  them  how  much  I  don't  know  about  carburetors.  But  before 
I  start  in  being  a  hero  I  want  to  shoot  out  and  catch  me  a  big  blaclr 


MAIN   STREET  277 

bass  and  cuss  out  you  and  Sam  Clark  and  Harry  Haydock  and  Will 
Kennicott  and  the  rest  of  you  pirates.  I'll  land  in  G.P.  on  June  7, 
on  No.  7  from  Mpls.  Shake  a  day-day.  Tell  Bert  Tybee  to  save 
me  a  glass  of  beer. 

Sincerely  yours, 

PERCE. 

All  members  of  the  social,  financial,  scientific,  literary,  and 
sporting  sets  were  at  No.  7  to  meet  Bresnahan;  Mrs.  Lyman 
Cass  was  beside  Del  Snafflin  the  barber,  and  Juanita  Haydock 
almost  cordial  to  Miss  Villets  the  librarian.  Carol  saw  Bres 
nahan  laughing  down  at  them  from  the  train  vestibule — big, 
immaculate,  overjawed,  with  the  eye  of  an  executive.  In  the 
voice  of  the  professional  Good  Fellow  he  bellowed,  "  Howdy, 
folks!  "  As  she  was  introduced  to  him  (not  he  to  her)  Bres 
nahan  looked  into  her  eyes,  and  his  hand-shake  was  warm,  un 
hurried. 

He  declined  the  offers  of  motors;  he  walked  off,  his  arm 
about  the  shoulder  of  Nat  Hicks  the  sporting  tailor,  with  the 
elegant  Harry  Haydock  carrying  one  of  his  enormous  pale 
leather  bags,  Del  Snafflin  the  other,  Jack  Elder  bearing  an 
overcoat,  and  Julius  Flickerbaugh  the  fishing-tackle.  Carol 
noted  that  though  Bresnahan  wore  spats  and  a  stick,  no  small 
boy  jeered.  She  decided,  "I  must  have  Will  get  a  double- 
breasted  blue  coat  and  a  wing  collar  and  a  dotted  bow-tie 
like  his." 

That  evening,  when  Kennicott  was  trimming  the  grass  along 
the  walk  with  sheep-shears,  Bresnahan  rolled  up,  alone.  He 
was  now  in  corduroy  trousers,  khaki  shirt  open  at  the  throat, 
a  white  boating  hat,  and  marvelous  canvas-and-leather  shoes. 
"  On  the  job  there,  old  Will!  Say,  my  Lord,  this  is  living,  to 
come  back  and  get  into  a  regular  man-sized  pair  of  pants. 
They  can  talk  all  they  want  to  about  the  city,  but  my  idea 
of  a  good  time  is  to  loaf  around  and  see  you  boys  and  catch 
a  gamey  bass!  " 

^  He  hustled  up  the  walk  and  blared  at  Carol,  "  Where's  that 
little  fellow?  I  hear  youVe  got  one  fine  big  he-boy  that  you're 
holding  out  on  me!  " 

"He's  gone  to  bed,"  rather  briefly. 

"  I  know.  And  rules  are  rules,  these  days.  Kids  get  routed 
through  the  shop  like  a  motor.  But  look  here,  sister;  I'm 
one  great  hand  at  busting  rules.  Come  on  now,  let  Uncle 
Perce  have  a  look  at  him.  Please  now,  sister?  " 


278  MAIN   STREET 

He  put  his  arm  about  her  waist;  it  was  a  large,  strong, 
sophisticated  arm,  and  very  agreeable;  he  grinned  at  her  with 
a  devastating  knowingness,  while  Kennicott  glowed  inanely. 
She  flushed;  she  was  alarmed  by  the  ease  with  which  the 
big-city  man  invaded  her  guarded  personality.  She  was  glad, 
in  retreat,  to  scamper  ahead  of  the  two  men  up-stairs  to  the 
hall-room  in  which  Hugh  slept.  All  the  way  Kennicott  mut 
tered,  "  Well,  well,  say,  gee  whittakers  but  it's  good  to  have 
you  back,  certainly  is  good  to  see  you!  " 

Hugh  lay  on  his  stomach,  making  an  earnest  business  of 
sleeping.  He  burrowed  his  eyes  in  the  dwarf  blue  pillow  to 
escape  the  electric  light,  then  sat  up  abruptly,  small  and  frail 
in  his  woolly  nightdrawers,  his  floss  of  brown  hair  wild,  the 
pillow  clutched  to  his  breast.  He  wailed.  He  stared  at  the 
stranger,  in  a  manner  of  patient  dismissal.  He  explained 
confidentially  to  Carol,  "  Daddy  wouldn't  let  it  be  morning 
yet.  What  does  the  pillow  say?  " 

Bresnahan  dropped  his  arm  caressingly  on  Carol's  shoulder; 
he  pronounced,  "  My  Lord,  you're  a  lucky  girl  to  have  a  fine 
young  husk  like  that.  I  figure  Will  knew  what  he  was  doing 
when  he  persuaded  you  to  take  a  chance  on  an  old  bum  like 
him!  They  tell  me  you  come  from  St.  Paul.  We're  going  to 
get  you  to  come  to  Boston  some  day."  He  leaned  over  the 
bed.  "  Young  man,  you're  the  slickest  sight  I've  seen  this 
side  of  Boston.  With  your  permission,  may  we  present  you 
with  a  slight  token  of  our  regard  and  appreciation  of  your 
long  service?  " 

He  held  out  a  red  rubber  Ejerrot.  Hugh  remarked,  "  Gimme 
it,"  hid  it  under  the  bedclothes,  and  stared  at  Bresnahan 
as  though  he  had  never  seen  the  man  before. 

For  once  Carol  permitted  herself  the  spiritual  luxury  of 
not  asking  "Why,  Hugh  dear,  what  do  you  say  when  some 
one  gives  you  a  present?  "  The  great  man  was  apparently 
waiting.  They  stood  in  inane  suspense  till  Bresnahan  led 
them  out,  rumbling,  "How  about  planning  a  fishing-trip, 
Will?  " 

He  remained  for  half  an  hour.  Always  he  told  Carol  what 
a  charming  person  she  was;  always  he  looked  at  her  knowingly. 

"  Yes.  He  probably  would  make  a  woman  fall  in  love  with 
him.  But  it  wouldn't  last  a  week.  I'd  get  tired  of  his  con 
founded  buoyancy.  His  hypocrisy.  He's  a  spiritual  bully. 
He  makes  me  rude  to  him  in  self-defense.  Oh  yes,  he  is  glad 


MAIN    STREET  279 

to  be  here.  He  does  like  us.  He's  so  good  an  actor  that  he 
convinces  his  own  self.  ...  I'd  hate  him  in  Boston. 
He'd  have  all  the  obvious  big-city  things.  Limousines.  Dis 
creet  evening-clothes.  Order  a  clever  dinner  at  a  smart  res 
taurant.  Drawing-room  decorated  by  the  best  firm — but  the 
pictures  giving  him  away.  I'd  rather  talk  to  Guy  Pollock  in 
his  dusty  office.  .  .  .  How  I  lie!  His  arm  coaxed  my 
shoulder  and  his  eyes  dared  me  not  to  admire  him.  I'd  be 
afraid  of  him.  I  hate  him!  .  .  .  Oh,  the  inconceivable 
egotistic  imagination  of  women!  All  this  stew  of  analysis 
about  a  man,  a  good,  decent,  friendly,  efficient  man,  because  he 
was  kind  to  me,  as  Will's  wife!  " 


IV 

The  Kennicotts,  the  Elders,  the  Clarks,  and  Bresnahan  went 
fishing  at  Red  Squaw  Lake.  They  drove  forty  miles  to  the  lake 
in  Elder's  new  Cadillac.  There  was  much  laughter  and  bustle 
at  the  start,  much  storing  of  lunch-baskets  and  jointed  poles, 
much  inquiry  as  to  whether  it  would  really  bother  Carol  to 
sit  with  her  feet  up  on  a  roll  of  shawls.  When  they  were 
ready  to  go  Mrs.  Clark  lamented,  "  Oh,  Sam,  I  forgot  my 
magazine,"  and  Bresnahan  bullied,  "Come  on  now,  if  you 
women  think  you're  going  to  be  literary,  you  can't  go  with  ; 
us  tough  guys!  "  Every  one  laughed  a  great  deal,  and  as 
they  drove  on  Mrs.  Clark  explained  that  though  probably  she 
would  not  have  read  it,  still,  she  might  have  wanted  to,  while 
the  other  girls  had  a  nap  in  the  afternoon,  and  she  was  right 
in  the  middle  of  a  serial — it  was  an  awfully  exciting  story — 
it  seems  that  this  girl  was  a  Turkish  dancer  (only  she  was 
really  the  daughter  of  an  American  lady  and  a  Russian  prince) 
and  men  kept  running  after  her,  just  disgustingly,  but  she 
remained  pure,  and  there  was  a  scene 

While  the  men  floated  on  the  lake,  casting  for  black  bass, 
the  women  prepared  lunch  and  yawned.  Carol  was  a  little 
resentful  of  the  manner  in  which  the  men  assumed  that  they 
did  not  care  to  fish.  "  I  don't  want  to  go  with  them,  but 
I  would  like  the  privilege  of  refusing." 

The  lunch  was  long  and  pleasant.  It  was  a  background 
for  the  talk  of  the  great  man  come  home,  hints  of  cities  and 
large  imperative  affairs  and  famous  people,  jocosely  mofiest 
admissions  that,  yes,  their  friend  Perce  was  doing  aboul  as 


280  MAIN   STREET 

well  as  most  of  these  "  Boston  swells  that  think  so  much  of 
themselves  because  they  come  from  rich  old  families  and  went 
to  college  and  everything.  Believe  me,  it's  us  new  business  men 
that  are  running  Beantown  today,  and  not  a  lot  of  fussy  old 
bucks  snoozing  in  their  clubs!  " 

Carol  realized  that  he  was  not  one  of  the  sons  of  Gopher 
Prairie  who,  if  they  do  not  actually  starve  in  the  East,  are 
invariably  spoken  of  as  "highly  successful";  and  she  found 
behind  his  too  incessant  flattery  a  genuine  affection  for  his 
mates.  It  was  in  the  matter  of  the  war  that  he  most  favored 
and  thrilled  them.  Dropping  his  voice  while  they  bent  nearer 
(there  was  no  one  within  two  miles  to  overhear),  he  disclosed 
the  fact  that  in  both  Boston  and  Washington  he'd  been  getting 
a  lot  of  inside  stuff  on  the  war — right  straight  from  head 
quarters — he  was  in  touch  with  some  men — couldn't  name 
them  but  they  were  darn  high  up  in  both  the  War  and  State 
Departments — and  he  would  say — only  for  Pete's  sake  they 
mustn't  breathe  one  word  of  this;  it  was  strictly  on  the  Q.T. 
and  not  generally  known  outside  of  Washington — but  just 
between  ourselves — and  they  could  take  this  for  gospel — Spain 
had  finally  decided  to  join  the  Entente  allies  in  the  Grand 
Scrap.  Yes,  sir,  there'd  be  two  million  fully  equipped  Spanish 
soldiers  fighting  with  us  in  France  in  one  month  now.  Some 
surprise  for  Germany,  all  right! 

"  How  about  the  prospects  for  revolution  in  Germany?  " 
reverently  asked  Kennicott. 

The  authority  grunted,  "  Nothing  to  it.  The  one  thing  you 
can  bet  on  is  that  no  matter  what  happens  to  the  German 
people,  win  or  lose,  they'll  stick  by  the  Kaiser  till  hell  freezes 
over.  I  got  that  absolutely  straight,  from  a  fellow  who's  on 
the  inside  of  the  inside  in  Washington.  No,  sir!  I  don't 
pretend  to  know  much  about  international  affairs  but  one  thing 
you  can  put  down  as  settled  is  that  Germany  will  be  a  Hohen- 
zollern  empire  for  the  next  forty  years.  At  that,  I  don't  know 
as  it's  so  bad.  The  Kaiser  and  the  Junkers  keep  a  firm  hand 
on  a  lot  of  these  red  agitators  who'd  be  worse  than  a  king  if 
they  could  get  control." 

"I'm  terribly  interested  in  this  uprising  that  overthrew 
the  Czar  in  Russia,"  suggested  Carol.  She  had  finally  been 
conquered  by  the  man's  wizard  knowledge  of  affairs. 

Kennicott  apologized  for  her:  "  Carrie's  nuts  about  this 
Russian  revolution.  Is  there  much  to  it,  Perce?  " 


MAIN   STREET  281 

"There  is  not!  "  Bresnahan  said  flatly.  "I  can  speak  by 
the  book  there.  Carol,  honey,  I'm  surprised  to  find  you  talking 
like  a  New  York  Russian  Jew,  or  one  of  these  long-hairs!  I 
can  tell  you,  only  you  don't  need  to  let  every  one  in  on  it, 
this  is  confidential,  I  got  it  from  a  man  who's  close  to  the 
State  Department,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  Czar  will  be  back 
in  power  before  the  end  of  the  year.  You  read  a  lot  about 
his  retiring  and  about  his  being  killed,  but  I  know  he's  got  a 
big  army  back  of  him,  and  he'll  show  these  damn  agitators, 
lazy  beggars  hunting  for  a  soft  berth  bossing  the  poor  goats 
that  fall  for  'em,  he'll  show  'em  where  they  get  off!  " 

Carol  was  sorry  to  hear  that  the  Czar  was  coming  back, 
but  she  said  nothing.  The  others  had  looked  vacant  at  the 
mention  of  a  country  so  far  away  as  Russia.  Now  they  edged 
in  and  asked  Bresnahan  what  he  thought  about  the  Packard 
car,  investments  in  Texas  oil-wells,  the  comparative  merits  of 
young  men  born  in  Minnesota  and  in  Massachusetts,  the  ques 
tion  of  prohibition,  the  future  cost  of  motor  tires,  and  wasn't 
it  true  that  American  aviators  put  it  all  over  these  French 
men? 

They  were  glad  to  find  that  he  agreed  with  them  on  every 
point. 

As  she  heard  Bresnahan  announce,  "  We're  perfectly  willing 
to  talk  to  any  committee  the  men  may  choose,  but  we're  not 
going  to  stand  for  some  outside  agitator  butting  in  and  telling 
us  how  we're  going  to  run  our  plant!  "  Carol  remembered 
that  Jackson  Elder  (now  meekly  receiving  New  Ideas)  had 
said  the  same  thing  in  the  same  words. 

While  Sam  Clark  was  digging  up  from  his  memory  a  long 
and  immensely  detailed  story  of  the  crushing  things  he  had 
said  to  a  Pullman  porter,  named  George,  Bresnahan  hugged 
his  knees  and  rocked  and  watched  Carol.  She  wondered  if  he 
did  not  understand  the  laboriousness  of  the  smile  with  which 
she  listened  to  Kennicott's  account  of  the  "  good  one  he  had 
on  Carrie,"  that  marital,  coyly  improper,  ten-times-told  tale 
of  how  she  had  forgotten  to  attend  to  Hugh  because  she  was 
"  all  het  up  pounding  the  box  " — which  may  be  translated  as 
"  eagerly  playing  the  piano."  She  was  certain  that  Bresnahan 
saw  through  her  when  she  pretended  not  to  hear  Kennicott's 
invitation  to  join  a  game  of  cribbage.  She  feared  the  comments 
he  might  make;  she  was  irritated  by  her  fear. 

She  was  equally  irritated,  when  the  motor  returned  through 


282  MAIN   STREET 

Gopher  Prairie,  to  find  that  she  was  proud  of  sharing  in 
Bresnahan's  kudos  as  people  waved,  and  Juanita  Haydock 
leaned  from  a  window.  She  said  to  herself,  "As  though  I 
cared  whether  I'm  seen  with  this  fat  phonograph!  "  and 
simultaneously,  "  Everybody  has  noticed  how  much  Will  and 
I  are  playing  with  Mr.  Bresnahan." 

The  town  was  full  of  his  stories,  his  friendliness,  his  memory 
for  names,  his  clothes,  his  trout-flies,  his  generosity.  He  had 
given  a  hundred  dollars  to  Father  Klubok  the  priest,  and  a 
hundred  to  the  Reverend  Mr.  Zitterel  the  Baptist  minister, 
for  Americanization  work. 

At  the  Bon  Ton,  Carol  heard  Nat  Hicks  the  tailor  exulting: 
"Old  Perce  certainly  pulled  a  good  one  on  this  fellow 
Bjornstam  that  always  is  shooting  off  his  mouth.  He's 
supposed  to  of  settled  down  since  he  got  married,  but  Lord, 
those  fellows  that  think  they  know  it  all,  they  never  change. 
Well,  the  Red  Swede  got  the  grand  razz  handed  to  him,  all 
right.  He  had  the  nerve  to  breeze  up  to  Perce,  at  Dave  Dyer's, 
and  he  said,  he  said  to  Perce,  *  I've  always  wanted  to  look 
at  a  man  that  was  so  useful  that  folks  would  pay  him  a  million 
dollars  for  existing/  and  Perce  gave  him  the  once-over  and 
come  right  back,  '  Have,  eh?  '  he  says.  *  Well/  he  says,  '  I've 
been  looking  for  a  man  so  useful  sweeping  floors  that  I  could 
pay  him  four  dollars  a  day.  Want  the  job,  my  friend?  '  Ha, 
ha,  ha!  Say,  you  know  how  lippy  Bjornstam  is?  Well  for 
once  he  didn't  have  a  thing  to  say.  He  tried  to  get  fresh, 
and  tell  what  a  rotten  town  this  is,  and  Perce  come  right 
back  at  him,  '  If  you  don't  like  this  country,  you  better  get 
out  of  it  and  go  back  to  Germany,  where  you  belong!  '  Say, 
maybe  us  fellows  didn't  give  Bjornstam  the  horse-laugh  though! 
Oh,  Perce  is  the  white-haired  boy  in  this  burg,  all  rightee!  " 


Bresnahan  had  borrowed  Jackson  Elder's  motor;  he  stopped 
at  the  Kennicotts';  he  bawled  at  Carol,  rocking  with  Hugh 
on  the  porch,  "  Better  come  for  a  ride." 

She  wanted  to  snub  him.  "  Thanks  so  much,  but  I'm  being 
maternal." 

"  Bring  him  along!  Bring  him  along!  "  Bresnahan  was 
out  of  the  seat,  stalking  up  the  sidewalk,  and  the  rest  of  her 
protests  and  dignities  were  feeble. 


MAIN   STREET  283 

She  did  not  bring  Hugh  along. 

Bresnahan  was  silent  for  a  mile,  in  words,  But  he  looked 
at  her  as  though  he  meant  her  to  know  that  he  understood 
everything  she  thought. 

She  observed  how  deep  was  his  chest. 

"  Lovely  fields  over  there,"  he  said. 

"  You  really  like  them?    There's  no  profit  in  them." 

He  chuckled.  "  Sister,  you  can't  get  away  with  it.  I'm 
onto  you.  You  consider  me  a  big  bluff.  Well,  maybe  I  am. 
But  so  are  you,  my  dear — and  pretty  enough  so  that  I'd 
try  to  make  love  to  you,  if  I  weren't  afraid  you'd  slap  me." 

"  Mr.  Bresnahan,  do  you  talk  that  way  to  your  wife's 
friends?  And  do  you  call  them  '  sister  '  ?  " 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  do!  And  I  make  'em  like  it. 
Score  two!  "  But  his  chuckle  was  not  so  rotund,  and  he  was 
very  attentive  to  the  ammeter. 

In  a  moment  he  was  cautiously  attacking:  "  That's  a  wonder 
ful  boy,  Will  Kennicott.  Great  work  these  country  practi 
tioners  are  doing.  The  other  day,  in  Washington,  I  was 
talking  to  a  big  scientific  shark,  a  professor  in  Johns  Hopkins 
medical  school,  and  he  was  saying  that  no  one  has  ever 
sufficiently  appreciated  the  general  practitioner  and  the  sym 
pathy  and  help  he  gives  folks.  These  crack  specialists,  the 
young  scientific  fellows,  they're  so  cocksure  and  so  wrapped 
up  in  their  laboratories  that  they  miss  the  human  element. 
Except  in  the  case  of  a  few  freak  diseases  that  no  respectable 
human  being  would  waste  his  time  having,  it's  the  old  doc 
that  keeps  a  community  well,  mind  and  body.  And  strikes  me 
that  Will  is  one  of  the  steadiest  and  clearest-headed  country 
practitioners  I've  ever  met.  Eh?  " 

"  I'm  sure  he  is.    He's  a  servant  of  reality." 

"Come  again?  Urn.  Yes.  All  of  that,  whatever  that 
is.  ...  Say,  child,  you  don't  care  a  whole  lot  for  Gopher 
Prairie,  if  I'm  not  mistaken." 

"  Nope." 

"  There's  where  you're  missing  a  big  chance.  There's  noth 
ing  to  these  cities.  Believe  me,  I  know!  This  is  a  good  town, 
as  they  go.  You're  lucky  to  be  here.  I  wish  I  could  stav 
on!  " 

"  Very  well,  why  don't  you?  " 

"  Huh?    Why— Lord— can't  get  away  fr " 

"You  don't  have  to  stay.    I  do!     So  I  want  to  change  it. 


284  MAIN   STREET 

Do  you  know  that  men  like  you,  prominent  men,  do  quite  a 
reasonable  amount  of  harm  by  insisting  that  your  native  towns 
and  native  states  are  perfect?  It's  you  who  encourage  the 
denizens  not  to  change.  They  quote  you,  and  go  on  believing 

that  they  live  in  paradise,  and "  She  clenched  her  fist. 

"The  incredible  dullness  of  it!  " 

"  Suppose  you  were  right.  Even  so,  don't  you  think  you 
waste  a  lot  of  thundering  on  one  poor  scared  little  town? 
Kind  of  mean!  " 

"  I  tell  you  it's  dull.    Dull!  " 

"The  folks  don't  find  it  dull.  These  couples  like  the 
Haydocks  have  a  high  old  time;  dances  and  cards " 

"  They  don't.  They're  bored.  Almost  every  one  here  is. 
Vacuousness  and  bad  manners  and  spiteful  gossip — that's  what 
I  hate." 

"  Those  things — course  they're  here.  So  are  they  in  Boston  I 
And  every  place  else!  Why,  the  faults  you  find  in  this  town 
are  simply  human  nature,  and  never  will  be  changed." 

"  Perhaps.  But  in  a  Boston  all  the  good  Carols  (I'll  admit 
I  hftve  no  faults)  can  find  one  another  and  play.  But  here — 
I'm  alone,  in  a  stale  pool — except  as  it's  stirred  by  the  great 
Mr,  Bresnahan!  " 

"  My  Lord,  to  hear  you  tell  it,  a  fellow  'd  think  that  all 
the  denizens,  as  you  impolitely  call  'em,  are  so  confoundedly 
unhappy  that  it's  a  wonder  they  don't  all  up  and  commit 
suicide.  But  they  seem  to  struggle  along  somehow!  " 

"They  don't  know  what  they  miss.  And  anybody  can 
endure  anything.  Look  at  men  in  mines  and  in  prisons." 

He  drew  up  on  the  south  shore  of  Lake  Minniemashie. 
He  glanced  across  the  reeds  reflected  on  the  water,  the  quiver 
of  wavelets  like  crumpled  tinfoil,  the  distant  shores  patched 
with  dark  woods,  silvery  oats  and  deep  yellow  wheat.  He 

patted  her  hand.  "  Sis Carol,  you're  a  darling  girl,  but 

you're  difficult.  Know  what  I  think?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  Humph.  Maybe  you  do,  but My  humble  (not  too 

humble!)  opinion  is  that  you  like  to  be  different.  You  like 
to  think  you're  peculiar.  Why,  if  you  knew  how  many  tens 
of  thousands  of  women,  especially  in  New  York,  say  just  what 
you  do,  you'd  lose  all  the  fun  of  thinking  you're  a  lone  genius 
and  you'd  be  on  the  band-wagon  whooping  it  up  for  Gopher 
Prairie  and  a  good  decent  family  life.  There's  always  about 


MAIN    STREET  285 

a  million  young  women  just  out  of  college  who  want  to  teach 
their  grandmothers  how  to  suck  eggs." 

"  How  proud  you  are  of  that  homely  rustic  metaphor!  You 
use  it  at  '  banquets '  and  directors'  meetings,  and  boast  of 
your  climb  from  a  humble  homestead." 

"  Huh!  You  may  have  my  number.  I'm  not  telling.  But 
look  here:  You're  so  prejudiced  against  Gopher  Prairie  that 
you  overshoot  the  mark;  you  antagonize  those  who  might  be 

inclined  to  agree  with  you  in  some  particulars  but Great 

guns,  the  town  can't  be  all  wrong!  " 

"  No,  it  isn't.  But  it  could  be.  Let  me  tell  you  a  fable. 
Imagine  a  cavewoman  complaining  to  her  mate.  She  doesn't 
like  one  single  thing;  she  hates  the  damp  cave,  the  rats 
running  over  her  bare  legs,  the  stiff  skin  garments,  the  eating 
of  half-raw  meat,  her  husband's  bushy  face,  the  constant 
battles,  and  the  worship  of  the  spirits  who  will  hoodoo  her 
unless  she  gives  the  priests  her  best  claw  necklace.  Her,  man 
protests,  '  But  it  can't  all  be  wrong!  '  and  he  thinks  he  has 
reduced  her  to  absurdity.  Now  you  assume  that  a  world 
which  produces  a  Percy  Bresnahan  and  a  Velvet  Motor  Com 
pany  must  be  civilized.  It  is?  Aren't  we  only  about  half-way 
along  in  barbarism?  I  suggest  Mrs.  Bogart  as  a  test.  And  • 
we'll  continue  in  barbarism  just  as  long  as  people  as  nearly 
intelligent  as  you  continue  to  defend  things  as  they  are  be-  * 
cause  they  are." 

"  You're  a  fair  spieler,  child.  But,  by  golly,  I'd  like  to  see 
you  try  to  design  a  new  manifold,  or  run  a  factory  and  keep 
a  lot  of  your  fellow  reds  from  Czech-slovenski-magyar- 
godknowswheria  on  the  job!  You'd  drop  your  theories  so 
darn  quick!  I'm  not  any  defender  of  things  as  they  are. 
Sure.  They're  rotten.  Only  I'm  sensible." 

He  preached  his  gospel :  love  of  outdoors,  Playing  the  Game, 
loyalty  to  friends.  She  had  the  neophyte's  shock  of  discovery 
that,  outside  of  tracts,  conservatives  do  not  tremble  and  find 
no  answer  when  an  iconoclast  turns  on  them,  but  retort  with 
agility  and  confusing  statistics. 

He  was  so  much  the  man,  the  worker,  the  friend,  that  she 
liked  him  when  she  most  tried  to  stand  out  against  him;  he 
was  so  much  the  successful  executive  that  she  did  not  want 
him  to  despise  her.  His  manner  of  sneering  at  what  he  called 
"  parlor  socialists  "  (though  the  phrase  was  not  overwhelmingly 
new)  had  a  power  which  made  her  wish  to  placate  his 


286  MAIN   STREET 

company  of  well-fed,  speed-loving  administrators.  When  he 
demanded,  "  Would  you  like  to  associate  with  nothing  but  a 
lot  of  turkey-necked,  horn-spectacled  nuts  that  have  ade 
noids  and  need  a  hair-cut,  and  that  spend  all  their  time  kicking 
about  '  conditions  '  and  never  do  a  lick  of  work?  "  she  said, 

"  No,  but  just  the  same "  When  he  asserted,  "  Even  if 

your  cavewoman  was  right  in  knocking  the  whole  works,  I 
bet  some  red-blooded  Regular  Fellow,  some  real  He-man, 
found  her  a  nice  dry  cave,  and  not  any  whining  criticizing 
radical,"  she  wriggled  her  head  feebly,  between  a  nod  and  a 
shake. 

His  large  hands,  sensual  lips,  easy  voice  supported  his  self- 
confidence.  He  made  her  feel  young  and  soft — as  Kenni- 
cott  had  once  made  her  feel.  She  had  nothing  to  say  when  he 
bent  his  powerful  head  and  experimented,  u  My  dear,  I'm 
sorry  I'm  going  away  from  this  town.  You'd  be  a  darling 
child  to  play  with.  You  are  pretty!  Some  day  in  Boston 
I'll  show  you  how  we  buy  a  lunch.  Well,  hang  it,  got  to  be 
starting  back." 

The  only  answer  to  his  gospel  of  beef  which  she  could  find, 
when  she  was  home,  was  a  wail  of  "  But  just  the  same " 

She  did  not  see  him  again  before  he  departed  for  Washing 
ton. 

His  eyes  remained.  His  glances  at  her  lips  and  hair  and 
shoulders  had  revealed  to  her  that  she  was  not  a  wife-and- 
mother  alone,  but  a  girl;  that  there  still  were  men  in  the 
world,  as  there  had  been  in  college  days. 

That  admiration  led  her  to  study  Kennicott,  to  tear  at  the 
shroud  of  intimacy,  to  perceive  the  strangeness  of  the  most 
familiar. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 


ALL  that  midsummer  month  Carol  was  sensitive  to  Kennicott 
She  recalled  a  hundred  grotesqueries :  her  comic  dismay  at 
his  having  chewed  tobacco,  the  evening  when  she  had  tried 
to  read  poetry  to  him;  matters  which  had  seemed  to  vanish 
with  no  trace  or  sequence.  Always  she  repeated  that  he  had 
been  heroically  patient  in  his  desire  to  join  the  army.  She 
made  much  of  her  consoling  affection  for  him  in  little  things. 
She  liked  the  homeliness  of  his  tinkering  about  the  house;  his 
strength  and  handiness  as  he  tightened  the  hinges  of  a  shutter; 
his  boyishness  when  he  ran  to  her  to  be  comforted  because  he 
had  found  rust  in  the  barrel  of  his  pump-gun.  But  at  the 
highest  he  was  to  her  another  Hugh,  without  the  glamor  of 
Hugh's  unknown  future. 

There  was,  late  in  June,  a  day  of  heat-lightning. 

Because  of  the  work  imposed  by  the  absence  of  the  other 
doctors  the  Kennicotts  had  not  moved  to  the  lake  cottage 
but  remained  in  town,  dusty  and  irritable.  In  the  afternoon, 
when  she  went  to  Oleson  &  McGuire's  (formerly  Dahl  & 
Oleson's),  Carol  was  vexed  by  the  assumption  of  the  youthful 
clerk,  recently  come  from  the  farm,  that  he  had  to  be  neigh 
borly  and  rude.  He  was  no  more  brusquely  familiar  than 
a  dozen  other  clerks  of  the  town,  but  her  nerves  were  heat- 
scorched. 

When  she  asked  for  codfish,  for  supper,  he  grunted,  "  What 
d'you  want  that  darned  old  dry  stuff  for?  " 

"I  like  it!" 

"  Punk!  Guess  the  doc  can  afford  something  better  than 
that.  Try  some  of  the  new  wienies  we  got  in.  Swell.  The 
Haydocks  use  'em." 

She  exploded.  "  My  dear  young  man,  it  is  not  your  duty  to 
instruct  me  in  housekeeping,  and  it  doesn't  particularly  con 
cern  me  what  the  Haydocks  condescend  to  approve!  " 

He  was  hurt.  He  hastily  wr°  jped  up  the  leprous  fragment 
of  fish;  he  gaped  as  she  tr  .ed  out.  She  lamented,  "I 


288  MAIN   STREET 

shouldn't  have  spoken  so.  He  didn't  mean  anything.  He 
doesn't  know  when  he  is  being  rude." 

Her  repentance  was  not  proof  against  Uncle  Whittier  when 
she  stopped  in  at  his  grocery  for  salt  and  a  package  of 
safety  matches.  Uncle  Whittier,  in  a  shirt  collarless  and  soaked 
with  sweat  in  a  brown  streak  down  his  back,  was  whining 
at  a  clerk,  "  Come  on  now,  get  a  hustle  on  and  lug  that  pound 
cake  up  to  Mis'  Cass's,  Some  folks  in  this  town  think  a 
storekeeper  ain't  got  nothing  to  do  but  chase  out  'phone- 
orders.  .  .  .  Hello,  Carrie.  That  dress  you  got  on  looks 
kind  of  low  in  the  neck  to  me.  May  be  decent  and  modest — 
I  suppose  I'm  old-fashioned — but  I  never  thought  much  of 
showing  the  whole  town  a  woman's  bust!  Hee,  hee,  hee! 
....  Afternoon,  Mrs.  Hicks.  Sage?  Just  out  of  it. 
Lemme  sell  you  some  other  spices.  Heh?  "  Uncle  Whittier  was 
nasally  indignant  "Certainly!  Got  plenty  other  spices  jus' 
good  as  sage  for  any  purp'se  whatever!  What's  the  matter 
with — well,  with  allspice?  "  When  Mrs.  Hicks  had  gone,  he 
raged,  "  Some  folks  don't  know  what  they  want!  " 

"  Sweating  sanctimonious  bully — my  husband's  uncle!  " 
thought  Carol. 

She  crept  into  Dave  Dyer's.  Dave  held  up  his  arms  with, 
"  Don't  shoot!  I  surrender!  "  She  smiled,  but  it  occurred  to 
her  that  for  nearly  five  years  Dave  had  kept  up  this  game  of 
pretending  that  she  threatened  his  life. 

As  she  went  dragging  through  the  prickly-hot  street  she 
reflected  that  a  citizen  of  Gopher  Prairie  does  not  have  jests — 
he  has  a  jest.  Every  cold  morning  for  five  winters  Lyman  Cass 
had  remarked,  "  Fair  to  middlin'  chilly — get  worse  before  it 
gets  better."  Fifty  times  had  Ezra  Stowbody  informed  the 
public  that  Carol  had  once  asked,  "  Shall  I  indorse  this  check 
on  the  back?  "  Fifty  times  had  Sam  Clark  called  to  her, 
"  Where'd  you  steal  that  hat?  "  Fifty  times  had  the  mention 
of  Barney  Cahoon,  the  town  drayman,  like  a  nickel  in  a  slot 
produced  from  Kennicott  the  apocryphal  story  of  Barney's 
directing  a  minister,  "  Come  down  to  the  depot  and  get  your 
case  of  religious  books — they're  leaking!  " 

She  came  home  by  the  unvarying  route.  She  knew  every 
house-front,  every  street-crossing,  every  billboard,  every  tree, 
every  dog.  She  knew  every  blackened  banana-skin  and  empty 
cigarette-box  in  the  gutters.  She  knew  every  greeting.  When 
Jim  Rowland  stopped  and  ga^.  'i  at  her  there  was  no  possibility 


MAIN   STREET  289 

that  he  was  about  to  confide  anything  but  his  grudging,  "  Well, 
haryuh  t'day?  " 

All  her  future  life,  this  same  red-labeled  bread-crate  in 
front  of  the  bakery,  this  same  thimble-shaped  crack  in  the 
sidewalk  a  quarter  of  a  block  beyond  Stowbody's  granite  hitch- 
ing-post 

She  silently  handed  her  purchases  to  the  silent  Oscarina. 
She  sat  on  the  porch,  rocking,  fanning,  twitchy  with  Hugh's 
whining. 

Kennicott  came  home,  grumbled,  "  What  the  devil  is  the  kid 
yapping  about?  " 

"  I  guess  you  can  stand  it  ten  minutes  if  I  can  stand  it  all 
day!  " 

He  came  to  supper  in  his  shirt  sleeves,  his  vest  partly  open, 
revealing  discolored  suspenders. 

"  Why  don't  you  put  on  your  nice  Palm  Beach  suit,  and  take 
off  that  hideous  vest?  "  she  complained. 

"  Too  much  trouble.    Too  hot  to  go  up-stairs." 

She  realized  that  for  perhaps  a  year  she  had  not  definitely 
looked  at  her  husband.  She  regarded  his  table-manners.  He 
violently  chased  fragments  of  fish  about  his  plate  with  a  knife 
and  licked  the  knife  after  gobbling  them.  She  was  slightly 
sick.  She  asserted,  "I'm  ridiculous.  What  do  these  things 
matter!  Don't  be  so  simple!  "  But  she  knew  that  to  her  they 
did  matter,  these  solecisms  and  mixed  tenses  of  the  table. 

She  realized  that  they  found  little  to  say;  that,  incredibly, 
they  were  like  the  talked-out  couples  whom  she  had  pitied  at 
restaurants. 

Bresnahan  would  have  spouted  in  a  lively,  exciting,  unre 
liable  manner.  .  .  . 

She  realized  that  Kennicott's  clothes  were  seldom  pressed. 
His  coat  was  wrinkled;  his  trousers  would  flap  at  the  knees 
when  he  arose.  His  shoes  were  unblacked,  and  they  were  of 
an  elderly  shapelessness.  He  refused  to  wear  soft  hats; 
cleaved  to  a  hard  derby,  as  a  symbol  of  virility  and  pros 
perity;  and  sometimes  he  forgot  to  take  it  off  in  the  house. 
She  peeped  at  his  cuffs.  They  were  frayed  in  prickles  of 
starched  linen.  She  had  turned  them  once;  she  clipped  them 
every  week;  but  when  she  had  begged  him  to  throw  the 
shirt  away,  last  Sunday  morning  at  the  crisis  of  the  weekly 
bath,  he  had  uneasily  protested,  "  Oh,  it'll  wear  quite  a  while 
yet." 


290  MAIN   STREET 

He  was  shaved  (by  himself  or  more  socially  by  Del  Snafflin) 
only  three  times  a  week.  This  morning  had  not  been  one  of 
the  three  times. 

Yet  he  was  vain  of  his  new  turn-down  collars  and  sleek  ties; 
he  often  spoke  of  the  "sloppy  dressing"  of  Dr.  McGanurn; 
and  he  laughed  at  old  men  who  wore  detachable  cuffs  or  Glad 
stone  collars. 

Carol  did  not  care  much  for  the  creamed  codfish  that  eve 
ning. 

She  noted  that  his  nails  were  jagged  and  ill-shaped  from 
his  habit  of  cutting  them  with  a  pocket-knife  and  despising 
a  nail-file  as  effeminate  and  urban.  That  they  were  invariably 
clean,  that  his  were  the  scoured  fingers  of  the  surgeon,  made 
his  stubborn  untidiness  the  more  jarring.  They  were  wise 
hands,  kind  hands,  but  they  were  not  the  hands  of  love. 

She  remembered  him  in  the  days  of  courtship.  He  had  tried 
to  please  her,  then;  had  touched  her  by  sheepishly  wearing 
a  colored  band  on  his  straw  hat.  Was  it  possible  that  those 
days  of  fumbling  for  each  other  were  gone  so  completely? 
He  had  read  books,  to  impress  her;  had  said  (she  recalled  it 
ironically)  that  she  was  to  point  out  his  every  fault;  had 
insisted  once,  as  they  sat  in  the  secret  place  beneath  the  walls 
of  Fort  Snelling 

She  shut  the  door  on  her  thoughts.  That  was  sacred  ground. 
But  it  was  a  shame  that 

She  nervously  pushed  away  her  cake  and  stewed  apricots. 

After  supper,  when  they  had  been  driven  in  from  the  porch 
by  mosquitos,  when  Kennicott  had  for  the  two-hundredth 
time  in  five  years  commented,  "  We  must  have  a  new  screen 
on  the  porch — lets  all  the  bugs  in,"  they  sat  reading,  and  she 
noted,  and  detested  herself  for  noting,  and  noted  again  his 
habitual  awkwardness.  He  slumped  down  in  one  chair,  his 
legs  up  on  another,  and  he  explored  the  recesses  of  his  left 
ear  with  the  end  of  his  little  finger — she  could  hear  the 
faint  smack — he  kept  it  up — he  kept  it  up 

He  blurted,  "  Oh.  Forgot  tell  you.  Some  of  the  fellows  com 
ing  in  to  play  poker  this  evening.  Suppose  we  could  have  some 
crackers  and  cheese  and  beer?  " 

She  nodded. 

"He  might  have  mentioned  it  before.  Oh  well,  it's  his 
house." 

The  poker-party  straggled  in:      Sam  Clark,  Jack  Elder, 


MAIN   STREET  291 

Dave  Dyer,  Jim  Rowland.  To  her  they  mechanically  said, 
"  'Devenin',"  but  to  Kennicott,  in  a  heroic  male  manner, 
"  Well,  well,  shall  we  start  playing?  Got  a  hunch  I'm  going 
to  lick  somebody  real  bad."  No  one  suggested  that  she  join 
them.  She  told  herself  that  it  was  her  own  fault,  because 
she  was  not  more  friendly;  but  she  remembered  that  they 
never  asked  Mrs.  Sam  Clark  to  play. 

Bresnahan  would  have  asked  her. 

She  sat  in  the  living-room,  glancing  across  the  hall  at  the 
men  as  they  humped  over  the  dining  table. 

They  were  in  shirt  sleeves;  smoking,  chewing,  spitting  in 
cessantly;  lowering  their  voices  for  a  moment  so  that  she 
did  not  hear  what  they  said  and  afterward  giggling  hoarsely; 
using  over  and  over  the  canonical  phrases:  "Three  to  dole," 
"  I  raise  you  a  finif ,"  "  Come  on  now,  ante  up ;  what  do  you 
think  this  is,  a  pink  tea?  "  The  cigar-smoke  was  acrid  and 
pervasive.  The  firmness  with  which  the  men  mouthed  their 
cigars  made  the  lower  part  of  their  faces  expressionless,  heavy, 
unappealing.  They  were  like  politicians  cynically  dividing 
appointments. 

How  could  they  understand  her  world? 

Did  that  faint  and  delicate  world  exist?  Was  she  a  fool? 
She  doubted  her  world,  doubted  herself,  and  was  sick  in  the 
acid,  smoke-stained  air. 

She  slipped  back  into  brooding  upon  the  habituality  of  the 
house. 

Kennicott  was  as  fixed  in  routine  as  an  isolated  old  man. 
At  first  he  had  amorously  deceived  himself  into  liking  her 
experiments  with  food — the  one  medium  in  which  she  could 
express  imagination — but  now  he  wanted  only  his  round  of 
favorite  dishes:  steak,  roast  beef,  boiled  pig's-feet,  oatmeal, 
baked  apples.  Because  at  some  more  flexible  period  he  had 
advanced  from  oranges  to  grape-fruit  he  considered  himself  an 
epicure. 

During  their  first  autumn  she  had  smiled  over  his  affection 
for  his  hunting-coat,  but  now  that  the  leather  had  come  un 
stitched  in  dribbles  of  pale  yellow  thread,  and  tatters  of  can 
vas,  smeared  with  dirt  of  the  fields  and  grease  from  gun- 
cleaning,  hung  in  a  border  of  rags,  she  hated  the  thing. 

Wasn't  her  whole  life  like  that  hunting-coat? 

She  knew  every  nick  and  brown  spot  on  each  piece  of  the 
set  of  china  purchased  by  Kennicott's  mother  in  1895— discreet 


292  MAIN   STREET 

china  with  a  pattern  of  washed-out  forget-me-nots,  rimmed 
with  blurred  gold:  the  gravy-boat,  in  a  saucer  which  did  not 
match,  the  solemn  and  evangelical  covered  vegetable-dishes, 
the  two  platters. 

Twenty  times  had  Kennicott  sighed  over  the  fact  that  Bea 
had  broken  the  other  platter — the  medium-sized  one. 

The  kitchen. 

Damp  black  iron  sink,  damp  whitey-yellow  drain-board  with 
shreds  of  discolored  wood  which  from  long  scrubbing  were 
as  soft  as  cotton  thread,  warped  table,  alarm  clock,  stove 
bravely  blackened  by  Oscarina  but  an  abomination  in  it3 
loose  doors  and  broken  drafts  and  oven  that  never  would  keep 
an  even  heat. 

Carol  had  done  her  best  by  the  kitchen:  painted  it  white, 
put  up  curtains,  replaced  a  six-year-old  calendar  by  a  color 
print.  She  had  hoped  for  tiling,  and  a  kerosene  range  for 
summer  cooking,  but  Kennicott  always  postponed  these  ex 
penses^, 

She<mas  better  acquainted  with  the  utensils  in  the  kitchen 
than  with  Vida  Sherwin  or  Guy  Pollock.  The  can-opener, 
whose  soft  gray  metal  handle  was  twisted  from  some  ancient 
effort  to  pry  open  a  window,  was  more  pertinent  to  her  than 
all  the  cathedrals  in  Europe;  and  more  significant  than  the 
future  of  Asia  was  the  never-settled  weekly  question  as  to 
whether  the  small  kitchen  knife  with  the  unpainted  handle  or 
the  second-best  buckhorn  carving-knife  was  better  for  cutting 
up  cold  chicken  for  Sunday  supper. 


She  was  ignored  by  the  males  till  midnight.  Her  husband 
called,  "  Suppose  we  could  have  some  eats,  Carrie?"  As  she 
passed  through  the  dining-room  the  men  smiled  on  her,  belly- 
smiles.  None  of  them  noticed  her  while  she  was  serving  the 
crackers  and  cheese  and  sardines  and  beer.  They  were  de 
termining  the  exact  psychology  of  Dave  Dyer  in  standing 
pat,  two  hours  before. 

When  they  were  gone  she  said  to  Kennicott,  "  Your  friends 
have  the  manners  of  a  barroom.  They  expect  me  to  wait  on 
them  like  a  servant.  They're  not  so  much  interested  in  me  as 
they  would  be  in  a  waiter,  because  they  don't  have  to  tip  me, 
Unfortunately!  Well,  good  night." 


MAIN   STREET  293 

So  rarely  did  she  nag  in  this  petty,  hot-weather  fashion 
that  he  was  astonished  rather  than  angry.  "Hey!  Waitl 

What's  the  idea?  I  must  say  I  don't  get  you.  The  boys 

Barroom?  Why,  Perce  Bresnahan  was  saying  there  isn't  a 
finer  bunch  of  royal  good  fellows  anywhere  than  just  the 
crowd  that  were  here  tonight!  " 

They  stood  in  the  lower  hall.  He  was  too  shocked  to  go  on 
with  his  duties  of  locking  the  front  door  and  winding  his 
watch  and  the  clock. 

"  Bresnahan!  I'm  sick  of  him!  "  She  meant  nothing  in 
particular. 

"  Why,  Carrie,  he's  one  of  the  biggest  men  in  the  country  1 
Boston  just  eats  out  of  his  hand!  " 

"  I  wonder  if  it  does?  How  do  we  know  but  that  in  Boston, 
among  well-bred  people,  he  may  be  regarded  as  an  absolute 
lout?  The  way  he  calls  women  '  Sister/  and  the  way " 

"  Now  look  here!  That'll  do!  Of  course  I  know  you  don't 
mean  it — you're  simply  hot  and  tired,  and  trying  to  work 
off  your  peeve  on  me.  But  just  the  same,  I  won't  stand  your 

jumping  on  Perce.  You It's  just  like  your  attitude 

toward  the  war — so  darn  afraid  that  America  will  become  mili 
taristic " 

"  But  you  are  the  pure  patriot!  " 

"By  God,  I  am!" 

"  Yes,  I  heard  you  talking  to  Sam  Clark  tonight  about  ways 
of  avoiding  the  income  tax!  " 

He  had  recovered  enough  to  lock  the  door;  he  clumped 
up-stairs  ahead  of  her,  growling,  "  You  don't  know  what  you're 
talking  about.  I'm  perfectly  willing  to  pay  my  full  tax — fact, 
I'm  in  favor  of  the  income  tax — even  though  I  do  think  it's 
a  penalty  on  frugality  and  enterprise — fact,  it's  an  unjust, 
darn-fool  tax.  But  just  the  same,  I'll  pay  it.  Only,  I'm  not 
idiot  enough  to  pay  more  than  the  government  makes  me  pay, 
and  Sam  and  I  were  just  figuring  out  whether  all  automobile 
expenses  oughn't  to  be  exemptions.  I'll  take  a  lot  off  you, 
Carrie,  but  I  don't  propose  for  one  second  to  stand  your  say 
ing  I'm  not  patriotic.  You  know  mighty  well  and  good  that 
I've  tried  to  get  away  and  join  the  army.  And  at  the  beginning 
of  the  whole  fracas  I  said — I've  said  right  along — that  we 
ought  to  have  entered  the  war  the  minute  Germany  invaded 
Belgium.  You  don't  get  me  at  all.  You  can't  appreci 
ate  a  man's  work.  You're  abnormal.  You've  fussed  so  much 


MAIN    STREET 

with  these  fool  novels  and  books  and  all  this  highbrow 
junk You  like  to  argue!  " 

It  ended,  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later,  in  his  calling  her  a 
"  neurotic  "  before  he  turned  away  and  pretended  to  sleep. 

For  the  first  time  they  had  failed  to  make  peace. 

"  There  are  two  races  of  people,  only  two,  and  they  live  side 
by  side.  His  calls  mine  '  neurotic ';  mine  calls  his  '  stupid.' 
We'll  never  understand  each  other,  never;  and  it's,  madness 
for  us  to  debate — to  lie  together  in  a  hot  bed  in  a  creepy 
room — enemies,  yoked." 


in 

It  clarified  in  her  the  longing  for  a  place  of  her  own. 

"  While  it's  so  hot,  I  think  I'll  sleep  in  the  spare  room,"  she 
said  next  day. 

"  Not  a  bad  idea."    He  was  cheerful  and  kindly. 

The  room  was  filled  with  a  lumbering  double  bed  and  a 
cheap  pine  bureau.  She  stored  the  bed  in  the  attic;  replaced 
it  by  a  cot  which,  with  a  denim  cover,  made  a  couch  by 
day;  put  in  a  dressing-table,  a  rocker  transformed  by  a  cre 
tonne  cover;  had  Miles  Bjornstam  build  book-shelves. 

Kennicott  slowly  understood  that  she  meant  to  keep  up 
her  seclusion.  In  his  queries,  "  Changing  the  whole  room?  " 
"  Putting  your  books  in  there?  "  she  caught  his  dismay.  But 
it  was  so  easy,  once  her  door  was  closed,  to  shut  out  his  worry. 
That  hurt  her — the  ease  of  forgetting  him. 

Aunt  Bessie  Smail  sleuthed  out  this  anarchy.  She  yam 
mered,  "  Why,  Carrie,  you  ain't  going  to  sleep  all  alone  by 
yourself?  I  don't  believe  in  that.  Married  folks  should  have 
the  same  room,  of  course!  Don't  go  getting  silly  notions.  No 
Selling  what  a  thing  like  that  might  lead  to.  Suppose  I  up 
and  told  your  Uncle  Whit  that  I  wanted  a  room  of  my  own!  '" 

Carol  spoke  of  recipes  for  corn-pudding. 

But  from  Mrs.  Dr.  Westlake  she  drew  encouragement.  She 
had  made  an  afternoon  call  on  Mrs.  Westlake.  She  was  for 
the  first  time  invited  up-stairs,  and  found  the  suave  old 
woman  sewing  in  a  white  and  mahogany  room  with  a  small 
bed. 

"  Oh,  do  you  have  your  own  royal  apartments,  and  the 
doctor  his?  "  Carol  hinted. 

"  Indeed  I  do!    The  doctor  says  it's  bad  enough  to  have  to 


MAIN   STREET  295 

stand  my  temper  at  meals.  Do "  Mrs.  Westlake  looked 

at  her  sharply.  "  Why,  don't  you  do  the  same  thing?  " 

"  I've  been  thinking  about  it."  Carol  laughed  in  an  em 
barrassed  way.  "  Then  you  wouldn't  regard  me  as  a  complete 
hussy  if  I  wanted  to  be  by  myself  now  and  then?  " 

"  Why,  child,  every  woman  ought  to  get  off  by  herself  and 
turn  over  her  thoughts — about  children,  and  God,  and  how 
bad  her  complexion  is,  and  the  way  men  don't  really  under 
stand  her,  and  how  much  work  she  finds  to  do  in  the  house, 
and  how  much  patience  it  takes  to  endure  some  things  in  a 
man's  love." 

"Yes!  "  Carol  said  it  in  a  gasp,  her  hands  twisted  to 
gether.  She  wanted  to  confess  not  only  her  hatred  for  the 
Aunt  Bessies  but  her  covert  irritation  toward  those  she  best 
loved:  her  alienation  from  Kennicott,  her  disappointment  in 
Guy  Pollock,  her  uneasiness  in  the  presence  of  Vida.  She  had 
enough  self-control  to  confine  herself  to,  "Yes.  Men!  The 
dear  blundering  souls,  we  do  have  to  get  off  and  laugh  at 
them." 

"  Of  course  we  do.  Not  that  you  have  to  laugh  at  Dr. 
Kennicott  so  much,  but  my  man,  heavens,  now  there's  a 
rare  old  bird!  Reading  story-books  when  he  ought  to  be  tend 
ing  to  business!  '  Marcus  Westlake/  I  say  to  him,  l  you're  a 
romantic  old  fool/  And  does  he  get  angry?  He  does  not! 
He  chuckles  and  says,  'Yes,  my  beloved,  folks  do  say  that 
married  people  grow  to  resemble  each  other!  '  Drat  him!  " 
Mrs.  Westlake  laughed  comfortably. 

After  such  a  disclosure  what  could  Carol  do  but  return 
the  courtesy  by  remarking  that  as  for  Kennicott,  he  wasn't 
romantic  enough — the  darling.  Before  she  left  she  had  babbled 
to  Mrs.  Westlake  her  dislike  for  Aunt  Bessie,  the  fact  that 
Kennicott's  income  was  now  more  than  five  thousand  a  year, 
her  view  of  the  reason  why  Vida  had  married  Raymie  (which 
included  some  thoroughly  insincere  praise  of  Raymie's  "  kind 
heart"),  her  opinion  of  the  library-board,  just  what  Kenni 
cott  had  said  about  Mrs.  Carthal's  diabetes,  and  what  Kenni 
cott  thought  of  the  several  surgeons  in  the  Cities. 

She  went  home  soothed  by  confession,  inspirited  by  finding 
a  new  friend. 


296  MAIN    STREET 

IV 

The  tragicomedy  of  the  "  domestic  situation." 

Oscarina  went  back  home  to  help  on  the  farm,  and  Carol  had 
a  succession  of  maids,  with  gaps  between.  The  lack  of  servants 
was  becoming  one  of  the  most  cramping  problems  of  the  prairie 
town.  Increasingly  the  farmers'  daughters  rebelled  against 
village  dullness,  and  against  the  unchanged  attitude  of  the 
Juanitas  toward  "  hired  girls."  They  went  off  to  city  kitchens, 
or  to  city  shops  and  factories,  that  they  might  be  free  and 
even  human  after  hours. 

The  Jolly  Seventeen  were  delighted  at  Carol's  desertion  by 
the  loyal  Oscarina.  They  reminded  her  that  she  had  said,  "  I 
don't  have  any  trouble  with  maids;  see  how  Oscarina  stays  on." 

Between  incumbencies  of  Finn  maids  from  the  North  Woods, 
Germans  from  the  prairies,  occasional  Swedes  and  Norwegians 
and  Icelanders,  Carol  did  her  own  work — and  endured  Aunt 
Bessie's  skittering  in  to  tell  her  how  to  dampen  a  broom  for 
fluffy  dust,  how  to  sugar  doughnuts,  how  to  stuff  a  goose. 
Carol  was  deft,  and  won  shy  praise  from  Kennicott,  but  as  her 
shoulder  blades  began  to  sting,  she  wondered  how  many 
millions  of  women  had  lied  to  themselves  during  the  death- 
rimmed  years  through  which  they  had  pretended  to  enjoy  the 
puerile  methods  persisting  in  housework. 

She  doubted  the  convenienca  and,  as  a  natural  sequent,  the 
sanctity  of  the  monogamous  and  separate  home  which  she  had 
regarded  as  the  basis  of  all  decent  life. 

She  considered  her  doubts  vicious.  She  refused  to  remember 
how  many  of  the  women  of  the  Jolly  Seventeen  nagged  their 
husbands  and  were  nagged  by  them. 

She  energetically  did  not  whine  to  Kennicott.  But  her  eyes 
ached ;  she  was  not  the  girl  in  breeches  and  a  flannel  shirt  who 
had  cooked  over  a  camp-fire  in  the  Colorado  mountains  five 
years  ago.  Her  ambition  was  to  get  to  bed  at  nine;  her 
strongest  emotion  was  resentment  over  rising  at  half -past  six 
to  care  for  Hugh.  The  back  of  her  neck  ached  as  she  got^out 
of  bed.  She  was  cynical  about  the  joys  of  a  simple  laborious 
life.  She  understood  why  workmen  and  workmen's  wives  are 
not  grateful  to  their  kind  employers. 

At  mid-morning,  when  she  was  momentarily  free  from  the 
ache  in  her  neck  and  back,  she  was  glad  of  the  reality  of 
work.  The  hours  were  living  and  nimble.  But  she  had  no 


MAIN   STREET  297 

desire  to  read  the  eloquent  little  newspaper  essays  in  praise  of 
labor  which  are  daily  written  by  the  white-browed  journal 
istic  prophets.  She  felt  independent  and  (though  she  hid  it) 
a  bit  surly. 

In  cleaning  the  house  she  pondered  upon  the  maid's-room. 
It  was  a  slant-roofed,  small-windowed  hole  above  the  kitchen, 
oppressive  in  summer,  frigid  in  winter.  She  saw  that  while 
she  had  been  considering  herself  an  unusually  good  mistress, 
she  had  been  permitting  her  friends  Bea  and  Oscarina  to  live 
in  a  sty.  She  complained  to  Kennicott.  "  What's  the  matter 
with  it?  "  he  growled,  as  they  stood  on  the  perilous  stairs 
dodging  up  from  the  kitchen.  She  commented  upon  the  slop 
ing  roof  of  unplastered  boards  stained  in  brown  rings  by  the 
rain,  the  uneven  floor,  the  cot  and  its  tumbled  discouraged- 
looking  quilts,  the  broken  rocker,  the  distorting  mirror. 

"  Maybe  it  ain't  any  Hotel  Radisson  parlor,  but  still,  it's 
so  much  better  than  anything  these  hired  girls  are  accustomed 
to  at  home  that  they  think  it's  fine.  Seems  foolish  to  spend 
money  when  they  wouldn't  appreciate  it." 

But  that  night  he  drawled,  with  the  casualness  of  a  man  who 
wishes  to  be  surprising  and  delightful,  "  Carrie,  don't  know 
but  what  we  might  begin  to  think  about  building  a  new 
house,  one  of  these  days.  How'd  you  like  that?  " 

"  W-why " 

"  I'm  getting  to  the  point  now  where  I  feel  we  can  afford 
one — and  a  corker!  I'll  show  this  burg  something  like  a  real 
house!  We'll  put  one  over  on  Sam  and  Harry!  Make  folks 
sit  up  an'  take  notice!  " 

"  Yes,"  she  said. 

He  did  not  go  on. 

Daily  he  returned  to  the  subject  of  the  new  house,  but  as 
to  time  and  mode  he  was  indefinite.  At  first  she  believed. 
She  babbled  of  a  low  stone  house  with  lattice  windows  and 
tulip-beds,  of  colonial  brick,  of  a  white  frame  cottage  with 
green  shutters  and  dormer  windows.  To  her  enthusiasms  he 
answered,  "  Well,  ye-es,  might  be  worth  thinking  about.  Re 
member  where  I  put  my  pipe?  "  When  she  pressed  him  he 
fidgeted,  "  I  don't  know;  seems  to  me  those  kind  of  houses  you 
speak  of  have  been  overdone." 

It  proved  that  what  he  wanted  was  a  house  exactly  like 
Sam  Clark's,  which  was  exactly  like  every  third  new  house  in 
x every  town  in  the  country:  a  square,  yellow  stolidity  with  im- 


298  MAIN   STREET 

maculate  clapboards,  a  broad  screened  porch,  tidy  grass-plots, 
and  concrete  walks;  a  house  resembling  the  mind  of  a  mer 
chant  who  votes  the  party  ticket  straight  and  goes  to  church 
once  a  month  and  owns  a  good  car. 

He  admitted,  "Well,  yes,  maybe  it  isn't  so  darn  artistic 

but Matter  of  fact,  though,  I  don't  want  a  place  just  like 

Sam's.  Maybe  I  would  cut  off  that  fool  tower  he's  got,  and 
I  think  probably  it  would  look  better  painted  a  nice  cream 
color.  That  yellow  on  Sam's  house  is  too  kind  of  flashy. 
Then  there's  another  kind  of  house  that's  mighty  nice  and 
substantial-looking,  with  shingles,  in  a  nice  brown  stain,  in 
stead  of  clapboards — seen  some  in  Minneapolis.  You're  way 
off  your  base  when  you  say  I  only  like  one  kind  of  house!  " 

Uncle  Whittier  and  Aunt  Bessie  came  in  one  evening  when 
Carol  was  sleepily  advocating  a  rose-garden  cottage. 

"  You've  had  a  lot  of  experience  with  housekeeping,  aunty, 
and  don't  you  think,"  Kennicott  appealed,  "  that  it  would  be 
sensible  to  have  a  nice  square  house,  and  pay  more  attention 
to  getting  a  crackajack  furnace  than  to  all  this  architecture 
and  doodads?  " 

Aunt  Bessie  worked  her  lips  as  though  they  were  an  elastic 
band.  "Why  of  course!  I  know  how  it  is  with  young  folks 
like  you,  Carrie;  you  want  towers  and  bay-windows  and  pianos 
and  heaven  knows  what  all,  but  the  thing  to  get  is  closets  and 
a  good  furnace  and  a  handy  place  to  hang  out  the  washing,  and 
the  rest  don't  matter." 

Uncle  Whittier  dribbled  a  little,  put  his  face  near  to  Carol's, 
and  sputtered,  "  Course  it  don't!  What  d'you  care  what  folks 
think  about  the  outside  of  your  house?  It's  the  inside  you're 
living  in.  None  of  my  business,  but  I  must  say  you  young 
folks  that'd  rather  have  cakes  than  potatoes  get  me  riled." 

She  reached  her  room  before  she  became  savage.  Below, 
dreadfully  near,  she  could  hear  the  broom-swish  of  Aunt 
Bessie's  voice,  and  the  mop-pounding  of  Uncle  Whittier's 
grumble.  She  had  a  reasonless  dread  that  they  would  in 
trude  on  her,  then  a  fear  that  she  would  yield  to  Gopher 
Prairie's  conception  of  duty  toward  an  Aunt  Bessie  and  go 
down-stairs  to  be  "  nice."  She  felt  the  demand  for  standard 
ized  behavior  coming  in  waves  from  all  the  citizens  who  sat 
in  their  sitting-rooms  watching  her  with  respectable  eyes, 
waiting,  demanding,  unyielding.  She  snarled,  "  Oh,  all  right, 
I'll  go!  "  She  powdered  her  nose,  straightened  her  collar. 


MAIN    STREET  299 

and  coldly  marched  down-stairs.  The  three  elders  ignored 
her.  They  had  advanced  from  the  new  house  to  agreeable 
general  fussing.  Aunt  Bessie  was  saying,  in  a  tone  like  the 
munching  of  dry  toast: 

"  I  do  think  Mr.  Stowbody  ought  to  have  had  the  rain-pipe 
fixed  at  our  store  right  away.  I  went  to  see  him  on  Tuesday 
morning  before  ten,  no,  it  was  couple  minutes  after  ten,  but 
anyway,  it  was  long  before  noon — I  know  because  I  went  right 
from  the  bank  to  the  meat  market  to  get  some  steak — my!  I 
think  it's  outrageous,  the  prices  Oleson  &  McGuire  charge  for 
their  meat,  and  it  isn't  as  if  they  gave  you  a  good  cut  either, 
but  just  any  old  thing,  and  I  had  time  to  get  it,  and  I 
stopped  in  at  Mrs.  Bogart's  to  ask  about  her  rheumatism " 

Carol  was  watching  Uncle  Whittier.  She  knew  from  his 
taut  expression  that  he  was  not  listening  to  Aunt  Bessie  but 
herding  his  own  thoughts,  and  that  he  would  interrupt  her 
bluntly.  He  did: 

"  Will,  where  c'n  I  get  an  extra  pair  of  pants  for  this  coat 
and  vest?  D'  want  to  pay  too  much." 

"Well,  guess  Nat  Hicks  could  make  you  up  a  pair.  But 
if  I  were  you,  I'd  drop  into  Ike  Rif kin's — his  prices  are  lower 
than  the  Bon  Ton's." 

"  Humph.    Got  the  new  stove  in  your  office  yet?  " 

"  No,  been  looking  at  some  at  Sam  Clark's  but " 

"  Well,  y'  ought  get  't  in.  Don't  do  to  put  off  getting  a 
stove  all  summer,  and  then  have  it  come  cold  on  you  in  ths 
fall." 

Carol  smiled  upon  them  ingratiatingly.  "Do  you  dears 
mind  if  I  slip  up  to  bed?  I'm  rather  tired — cleaned  the  up 
stairs  today." 

She  retreated.  She  was  certain  that  they  were  discussing 
her,  and  foully  forgiving  her.  She  lay  awake  till  she  heard  the 
distant  creak  of  a  bed  which  indicated  that  Kennicott  had 
retired.  Then  she  felt  safe. 

It  was  Kennicott  who  brought  up  the  matter  of  the  Smails 
at  breakfast.  With  no  visible  connection  he  said,  "Uncle 
Whit  is  kind  of  clumsy,  but  just  the  same,  he's  a  pretty  wise 
old  coot.  He's  certainly  making  good  with  the  store." 

Carol  smiled,  and  Kennicott  was  pleased  that  she  had  come 
to  her  senses.  "  As  Whit  says,  after  all  the  first  thing  is  to 
have  the  inside  of  a  house  right,  and  darn  the  people  on  the 
outside  looking  in!  " 


300  MAIN   STREET 

It  seemed  settled  that  the  house  was  to  be  a  sound  example 
of  the  Sam  Clark  school. 

Kennicott  made  much  of  erecting  it  entirely  for  her  and  the 
baby.  He  spoke  of  closets  for  her  frocks,  and  "  a  comfy  sew 
ing-room."  But  when  he  drew  on  a  leaf  from  an  old  account- 
book  (he  was  a  paper-saver  and  a  string-picker)  the  plans  for 
the  garage,  he  gave  much  more  attention  to  a  cement  floor 
and  a  work-bench  and  a  gasoline-tank  than  he  had  to  sewing- 
rooms. 

She  sat  back  and  was  afraid. 

In  the  present  rookery  there  were  odd  things — a  step  up 
from  the  hall  to  the  dining-room,  a  picturesqueness  in  the  shed 
and  bedraggled  lilac  bush.  But  the  new  place  would  be  smooth, 
standardized,  fixed.  It  was  probable,  now  that  Kennicott  was 
past  forty,  and  settled,  that  this  would  be  the  last  venture 
he  would  ever  make  in  building.  So  long  as  she  stayed  in  this 
ark,  she  would  always  have  a  possibility  of  change,  but  once 
she  was  in  the  new  house,  there  she  would  sit  for  all  the  rest 
of  her  life — there  she  would  die.  Desperately  she  wanted  to 
put  it  off,  against  the  chance  of  miracles.  While  Kennicott 
was  chattering  about  a  patent  swing-door  for  the  garage  shr 
saw  the  swing-doors  of  a  prison. 

She  never  voluntarily  returned  to  the  project.  Aggrieved, 
Kennicott  stopped  drawing  plans,  and  in  ten  days  the  new 
house  was  forgotten. 


Every  year  since  their  marriage  Carol  had  longed  for  a  trip 
through  the  East.  Every  year  Kennicott  had  talked  of  at 
tending  the  American  Medical  Association  convention,  "and 
then  afterwards  we  could  do  the  East  up  brown.  I  know  New 
York  clean  through — spent  pretty  near  a  week  there — but  I 
would  like  to  see  New  England  and  all  these  historic  places 
and  have  some  sea-food."  He  talked  of  it  from  February  to 
May,  and  in  May  he  invariably  decided  that  coming  confine 
ment-cases  or  land-deals  would  prevent  his  "  getting  away  from 
home-base  for  very  long  this  year — and  no  sense  going  till  we 
can  do  it  right." 

The  weariness  of  dish-washing  had  increased  her  desire  to 
go.  She  pictured  herself  looking  at  Emerson's  manse,  bathing 
in  a  surf  of  jade  and  ivory,  wearing  a  trottoir  and  a  summer 


MAIN   STREET  301 

fur,  meeting  an  aristocratic  Stranger.  In  the  spring  Kennicott 
had  pathetically  volunteered,  "  S'pose  you'd  like  to  get  in  a 
good  long  tour  this  summer,  but  with  Gould  and  Mac  away 
and  so  many  patients  depending  on  me,  don't  see  how  I  can 
make  it.  By  golly,  I  feel  like  a  tightwad  though,  not  taking 
you."  Through  all  this  restless  July  after  she  had  tasted  Bres- 
nahan's  disturbing  flavor  of  travel  and  gaiety,  she  wanted  to  go, 
but  she  said  nothing.  They  spoke  of  and  postponed  a  trip 
to  the  Twin  Cities.  When  she  suggested,  as  though  it  were  a 
tremendous  joke,  "  I  think  baby  and  I  might  up  and  leave  you, 
and  run  off  to  Cape  Cod  by  ourselves!  "  his  only  reaction  was 
"  Golly,  don't  know  but  what  you  may  almost  have  to  do 
that,  if  we  don't  get  in  a  trip  next  year." 

Toward  the  end  of  July  he  proposed,  "  Say,  the  Beavers  are 
holding  a  convention  in  Joralemon,  street  fair  and  everything. 
We  might  go  down  tomorrow.  And  I'd  like  to  see  Dr.  Cali- 
bree  about  some  business.  Put  in  the  whole  day.  Might  help 
some  to  make  up  for  our  trip.  Fine  fellow,  Dr.  Calibree." 

Joralemon  was  a  prairie  town  of  the  size  of  Gopher  Prairie. 

Their  motor  was  out  of  order,  and  there  was  no  passenger- 
train  at  an  early  hour.  They  went  down  by  freight-train, 
after  the  weighty  and  conversational  business  of  leaving  Hugh 
with  Aunt  Bessie.  Carol  was  exultant  over  this  irregular  jaunt 
ing.  It  was  the  first  unusual  thing,  except  the  glance  of 
Bresnahan,  that  had  happened  since  the  weaning  of  Hugh. 
They  rode  in  the  caboose,  the  small  red  cupola-topped  car 
jerked  along  at  the  end  of  the  train.  It  was  a  roving  shanty, 
the  cabin  of  a  land  schooner,  with  black  oilcloth  seats  along 
the  side,  and  for  desk,  a  pine  board  to  be  let  down  on  hinges. 
Kennicott  played  seven-up  with  the  conductor  and  two  brake- 
men.  Carol  liked  the  blue  silk  kerchiefs  about  the  brakemen's 
throats;  she  liked  their  welcome  to  her,  and  their  air  of 
friendly  independence.  Since  there  were  no  sweating  passengers 
crammed  in  beside  her,  she  reveled  in  the  train's  slowness.  She 
was  part  of  these  lakes  and  tawny  wheat-fields.  She  liked  the 
smell  of  hot  earth  and  clean  grease;  and  the  leisurely  chug-a- 
chug,  chug-a-chug  of  the  trucks  was  a  song  of  contentment  in 
ihe  sun. 

She  pretended  that  she  was  going  to  the  Rockies.  When 
they  reached  Joralemon  she  was  radiant  with  holiday-making. 

Her  eagerness  began  to  lessen  the  moment  they  stopped  at 
&  red  frame  station  exactly  like  the  one  they  had  just  left 


302  MAIN   STREET 

at  Gopher  Prairie,  and  Kennicott  yawned,  "  Right  on  time. 
Just  in  time  i<  k  dinner  at  the  Calibrees'.  I  'phoned  the  doctor 
from  G.  P.  that  we'd  be  here.  '  We'll  catch  the  freight  that 
gets  in  before  twelve,'  I  told  him.  He  said  he'd  meet  us  at  the 
depot  and  take  us  right  up  to  the  house  for  dinner.  Calibree 
is  a  good  man,  and  you'll  find  his  wife  is  a  mighty  brainy 
little  woman,  bright  as  a  dollar.  By  golly,  there  he  is." 

Dr.  Calibree  was  a  squat,  clean-shaven,  conscientious-looking 
man  of  forty.  He  was  curiously  like  his  own  brown-painted 
motor  car,  with  eye-glasses  for  windshield.  "Want  you  to 
meet  my  wife,  doctor — Carrie,  make  you  'quainted  with  Dr. 
Calibree,"  said  Kennicott.  Calibree  bowed  quietly  and  shook 
her  hand,  but  before  he  had  finished  shaking  it  he  was  con 
centrating  upon  Kennicott  with,  "  Nice  to  see  you,  doctor. 
Say,  don't  let  me  forget  to  ask  you  about  what  you  did  in  that 
exopthalmic  goiter  case — that  Bohemian  woman  at  Wahkeen- 
yan." 

The  two  men,  on  the  front  seat  of  the  car,  chanted  goiters 
and  ignored  her.  She  did  not  know  it.  She  was  trying  to  feed 
her  illusion  of  adventure  by  staring  at  unfamiliar  houses.  .  .  . 
drab  cottages,  artificial  stone  bungalows,  square  painty  stolidi 
ties  with  immaculate  clapboards  and  broad  screened  porches 
and  tidy  grass-plots. 

Calibree  handed  her  over  to  his  wife,  a  thick  woman  who 
called  her  "  dearie,"  and  asked  if  she  was  hot  and,  visibly 
searching  for  conversation,  produced,  "  Let's  see,  you  and  the 
doctor  have  a  Little  One,  haven't  you?  "  At  dinner  Mrs.  Cali 
bree  served  the  corned  beef  and  cabbage  and  looked  steamy, 
looked  like  the  steamy  leaves  of  cabbage.  The  men  were 
oblivious  of  their  wives  as  they  gave  the  social  passwords  of 
Main  Street,  the  orthodox  opinions  on  weather,  crops,  and 
motor  cars,  then  flung  away  restraint  and  gyrated  in  the  de 
bauch  of  shop-talk.  Stroking  his  chin,  drawling  in  the  ecstasy 
of  being  erudite,  Kennicott  inquired,  "  Say,  doctor,  what  suc 
cess  have  you  had  with  thyroid  for  treatment  of  pains  in  the 
legs  before  child-birth?  " 

Carol  did  not  resent  their  assumption  that  she  was  too  igno 
rant  to  be  admitted  to  masculine  mysteries.  She  was  used  to 
it.  But  the  cabbage  and  Mrs.  Calibree's  monotonous  "  I  don't 
know  what  we're  coming  to  with  all  this  difficulty  getting  hired 
girls  "  were  gumming  her  eyes  with  drowsiness.  She  sought 
to  clear  them  by  appealing  to  Calibree,  in  a  manner  of  exag- 


MAIN    STREET  3^3 

gerated  liveliness,  "  Doctor,  have  the  medical  societies  in  Min 
nesota  ever  advocated  legislation  for  help  to  nursing  mothers?  " 

Calibree  slowly  revolved  toward  her.  "  Uh — I've  never — 
ah — never  looked  into  it.  I  don't  believe  much  in  getting 
mixed  up  in  politics."  He  turned  squarely  from  her  and,  peer 
ing  earnestly  at  Kennicott,  resumed,  "  Doctor,  what's  been  your 
experience  with  unilateral  pyelonephritis?  Buckburn  of  Balti 
more  advocates  decapsulation  and  nephrotomy,  but  seems  to 
me " 

Not  till  after  two  did  they  rise.  In  the  lee  of  the  stonily 
mature  trio  Carol  proceeded  to  the  street  fair  which  added 
mundane  gaiety  to  the  annual  rites  of  the  United  and  Fraternal 
Order  of  Beavers.  Beavers,  human  Beavers,  were  everywhere: 
thirty-second  degree  Beavers  in  gray  sack  suits  and  decent 
derbies,  more  flippant  Beavers  in  crash  summer  coats  and  straw 
hats,  rustic  Beavers  in  shirt  sleeves  and  frayed  suspenders; 
but  whatever  his  caste-symbols,  every  Beaver  was  distinguished 
by  an  enormous  shrimp-colored  ribbon  lettered  in  silver,  "  Sir 
Knight  and  Brother,  U.  F.  O.  B.,  Annual  State  Convention." 
On  the  motherly  shirtwaist  of  each  of  their  wives  was  a  badge, 
"  Sir  Knight's  Lady."  The  Duluth  delegation  had  brought  their 
famous  Beaver  amateur  band,  in  Zouave  costumes  of  green 
velvet  jacket,  blue  trousers,  and  scarlet  fez.  The  strange 
thing  was  that  beneath  their  scarlet  pride  the  Zouaves'  faces 
remained  those  of  American  business-men,  pink,  smooth,  eye- 
glassed;  and  as  they  stood  playing  in  a  circle,  at  the  corner 
of  Main  Street  and  Second,  as  they  tootled  on  fifes  or  with 
swelling  cheeks  blew  into  cornets,  their  eyes  remained  as 
owlish  as  though  they  were  sitting  at  desks  under  the  sign 
«  This  Is  My  Busy  Day." 

Carol  had  supposed  that  the  Beavers  were  average  citizens 
organized  for  the  purposes  of  getting  cheap  life-insurance  and 
playing  poker  at  the  lodge-rooms  every  second  Wednesday,  but 
she  saw  a  large  poster  which  proclaimed: 

BEAVERS 
U.    F.    O.    B. 

The  greatest   influence   for  good  citizenship  in  the 

country.     The    j oiliest    aggregation    of    red-blooded, 

open-handed,  hustle-em-up  good  fellows  in  the  world. 

Joralemon  welcomes  you  to  her  hospitable  city. 


304  MAIN   STREET 

Kennicott  read  the  poster  and  to  Calibree  admired,  "  Strong 
lodge,  the  Beavers.  Never  joined.  Don't  know  but  what  I 
will." 

Calibree  adumbrated,  "  They're  a  good  bunch.  Good  strong 
lodge.  See  that  fellow  there  that's  playing  the  snare  drum? 
He's  the  smartest  wholesale  grocer  in  Duluth,  they  say.  Guess 
it  would  be  worth  joining.  Oh  say,  are  you  doing  much  in 
surance  examining?  " 

They  went  on  to  the  street  fair. 

Lining  one  block  of  Main  Street  were  the  "  attractions  "— 
two  hot-dog  stands,  a  lemonade  and  pop-corn  stand,  a  merry- 
go-round,  and  booths  in  which  balls  might  be  thrown  at  rag 
dolls,  if  one  wished  to  throw  balls  at  rag  dolls.  The  dignified 
delegates  were  shy  of  the  booths,  but  country  boys  with  brick- 
red  necks  and  pale-blue  ties  and  bright-yellow  shoes,  who  had 
brought  sweethearts  into  town  in  somewhat  dusty  and  listed 
Fords,  were  wolfing  sandwiches,  drinking  strawberry  pop  out  of 
bottles,  and  riding  the  revolving  crimson  and  gold  horses.  They 
shrieked  and  giggled;  peanut-roasters  whistled;  the  merry-go- 
round  pounded  out  monotonous  music;  the  barkers  bawled, 
"  Here's  your  chance — here's  your  chance — come  on  here,  boy — 
come  on  here — give  that  girl  a  good  time — give  her  a  swell 
time — here's  your  chance  to  win  a  genuwine  gold  watch  for 
five  cents,  half  a  dime,  the  twentieth  part  of  a  dollah!  "  The 
prairie  sun  jabbed  the  unshaded  street  with  shafts  that  were 
like  poisonous  thorns;  the  tinny  cornices  above  the  brick  stores 
were  glaring;  the  dull  breeze  scattered  dust  on  sweaty  Beavers 
who  crawled  along  in  tight  scorching  new  shoes,  up  two  blocks 
and  back,  up  two  blocks  and  back,  wondering  what  to  do  next, 
working  at  having  a  good  time. 

Carol's  head  ached  as  she  trailed  behind  the  unsmiling 
Calibrees  along  the  block  of  booths.  She  chirruped  at  Kenni 
cott,  "  Let's  be  wild!  Let's  ride  on  the  merry-go-round  and 
grab  a  gold  ring!  " 

Kennicott  considered  it,  and  mumbled  to  Calibree,  "  Think 
you  folks  would  like  to  stop  and  try  a  ride  on  the  merry-go- 
round?  " 

Calibree  considered  it,  and  mumbled  to  his  wife,  "Think 
you'd  like  to  stop  and  try  a  ride  on  the  merry-go-round?  " 

Mrs.  Calibree  smiled  in  a  washed-out  manner,  and  sighed, 
"  Oh  no,  I  don't  believe  I  care  to  much,  but  you  folks  go  ahead 
and  try  it." 


MAIN   STREET  305 

Calibree  stated  to  Kennicott,  "  No,  I  don't  believe  we  care 
to  a  whole  lot,  but  you  folks  go  ahead  and  try  it." 

Kennicott  summarized  the  whole  case  against  wildness: 
"  Let's  try  it  some  other  time,  Carrie." 

She  gave  it  up.  She  looked  at  the  town.  She  saw  that  in 
adventuring  from  Main  Street,  Gopher  Prairie,  to  Main  Street, 
Joralemon,  she  had  not  stirred.  There  were  the  same  two- 
story  brick  groceries  with  lodge-signs  above  the  awnings;  the 
same  one-story  wooden  millinery  shop;  the  same  fire-brick 
garages;  the  same  prairie  at  the  open  end  of  the  wide  street; 
the  same  people  wondering  whether  the  levity  of  eating  a  hot- 
dog  sandwich  would  break  their  taboos. 

They  reached  Gopher  Prairie  at  nine  in  the  evening. 

"  You  look  kind  of  hot,"  said  Kennicott. 

«  Yes." 

"  Joralemon  is  an  enterprising  town,  don't  you  think  so?  " 

She  broke.    "No!    I  think  it's  an  ash-heap." 

"  Why,  Carrie!  " 

He  worried  over  it  for  a  week.  While  he  ground  his  plate 
with  his  knife  as  he  energetically  pursued  fragments  of  bacon, 
he  peeped  at  her. 


CHAPTER  XXV 


;t  CARRIE'S  all  right.  She's  finicky,  but  she'll  get  over  it.  But 
I  wish  she'd  hurry  up  about  it!  What  she  can't  understand 
is  that  a  fellow  practising  medicine  in  a  small  town  like  this 
has  got  to  cut  out  the  highbrow  stuff,  and  not  spend  all  his 
time  going  to  concerts  and  shining  his  shoes.  (Not  but  what 
he  might  be  just  as  good  at  all  these  intellectual  and  art 
things  as  some  other  folks,  if  he  had  the  time  for  it!)  "  Dr. 
Will  Kennicott  was  brooding  in  his  office,  during  a  free  moment 
toward  the  end  of  the  summer  afternoon.  He  hunched  down 
in  his  tilted  desk-chair,  undid  a  button  of  his  shirt,  glanced 
at  the  state  news  in  the  back  of  the  Journal  of  the  American 
Medical  Association,  dropped  the  magazine,  leaned  back  with 
his  right  thumb  hooked  in  the  arm-hole  of  his  vest  and  his 
left  thumb  stroking  the  back  of  his  hair. 

"  By  golly,  she's  taking  an  awful  big  chance,  though.  You'd 
expect  her  to  learn  by  and  by  that  I  won't  be  a  parlor  lizard. 
She  says  we  try  to  '  make  her  over.'  Well,  she's  always  trying 
to  make  me  over,  from  a  perfectly  good  M.  D.  into  a  damn 
poet  with  a  socialist  necktie!  She'd  have  a  fit  if  she  knew 
how  many  women  would  be  willing  to  cuddle  up  to  Friend  Will 
and  comfort  him,  if  he'd  give  'em  the  chance!  There's 
still  a  few  dames  that  think  the  old  man  isn't  so  darn  un 
attractive!  I'm  glad  I've  ducked  all  that  woman-game  since 

I've  been  married  but Be  switched  if  sometimes  I  don't 

feel  tempted  to  shine  up  to  some  girl  that  has  sense  enough 
to  take  life  as  it  is;  some  frau  that  doesn't  want  to  talk 
Longfellow  all  the  time,  but  just  hold  my  hand  and  say,  *  You 
look  all  in,  honey.  Take  it  easy,  and  don't  try  to  talk.' 

"  Carrie  thinks  she's  such  a  whale  at  analyzing  folks.  Giving 
the  town  the  once-over.  Telling  us  where  we  get  off.  Why, 
she'd  simply  turn  up  her  toes  and  croak  if  she  found  out  how 
much  she  doesn't  know  about  the  high  old  times  a  wise  guy 
could  have  in  this  burg  on  the  Q.T.,  if  he  wasn't  faithful  to 
his  wife.  But  I  am.  At  that,  no  matter  what  faults  she's 

306 


MAIN    STREET  307 

got,  there's  nobody  here,  no,  nor  in  Minn'aplus  either,  that's 
as  nice-looking  and  square  and  bright  as  Carrie.  She  ought 
to  of  been  an  artist  or  a  writer  or  one  of  those  things.  But 
once  she  took  a  shot  at  living  here,  she  ought  to  stick  by  it. 

Pretty Lord  yes.  But  cold.  She  simply  doesn't  know 

what  passion  is.  She  simply  hasn't  got  an  i-dea  how  hard 
it  is  for  a  full-blooded  man  to  go  on  pretending  to  be  satisfied 
with  just  being  endured.  It  gets  awful  tiresome,  having  to 
feel  like  a  criminal  just  because  I'm  normal.  She's  getting 
so  she  doesn't  even  care  for  my  kissing  her.  Well 

"  I  guess  I  can  weather  it,  same  as  I  did  earning  my  way 
through  school  and  getting  started  in  practise.  But  I  wonder 
how  long  I  can  stand  being  an  outsider  in  my  own  home?  " 

He  sat  up  at  the  entrance  of  Mrs.  Dave  Dyer.  She  slumped 
into  a  chair  and  gasped  with  the  heat.  He  chuckled,  "  Well, 
well,  Maud,  this  is  fine.  Where's  the  subscription-list?  What 
cause  do  I  get  robbed  for,  this  trip?  " 

"  I  haven't  any  subscription-list,  Will.  I  want  to  see  you 
professionally." 

"  And  you  a  Christian  Scientist?  Have  you  given  that  up? 
What  next?  New  Thought  or  Spiritualism?  " 

"  No,  I  have  not  given  it  up!  " 

"  Strikes  me  it's  kind  of  a  knock  on  the  sisterhood,  your 
coming  to  see  a  doctor!  " 

"No,  it  isn't.  It's  just  that  my  faith  isn't  strong  enough 
yet.  So  there  now!  And  besides,  you  are  kind  of  consoling, 
Will.  I  mean  as  a  man,  not  just  as  a  doctor.  You're  so  strong 
and  placid." 

He  sat  on  the  edge  of  his  desk,  coatless,  his  vest  swinging 
open  with  the  thick  gold  line  of  his  watch-chain  across  the 
gap,  his  hands  in  his  trousers  pockets,  his  big  arms  bent  and 
easy.  As  she  purred  he  cocked  an  interested  eye.  Maud 
Dyer  was  neurotic,  religiocentric,  faded;  her  emotions  were 
moist,  and  her  figure  was  unsystematic — splendid  thighs  and 
arms,  with  thick  ankles,  and  a  body  that  was  bulgy  in  the 
wrong  places.  But  her  milky  skin  was  delicious,  her  eyes  were 
alive,  her  chestnut  hair  shone,  and  there  was  a  tender  slope 
from  her  ears  to  the  shadowy  place  below  her  jaw. 

With  unusual  solicitude  he  uttered  his  stock  phrase,  "  Well, 
what  seems  to  be  the  matter,  Maud?  " 

"I've  got  such  a  backache  all  the  time.  I'm  afraid  thfl 
organic  trouble  that  you  treated  me  for  is  coming  back.* 


308  MAIN   STREET 

"  Any  definite  signs  of  it?  " 

"  N-no,  but  I  think  you'd  better  examine  me." 

"  Nope.  Don't  believe  it's  necessary,  Maud.  To  be  honest, 
between  old  friends,  I  think  your  troubles  are  mostly  imaginary. 
I  can't  really  advise  you  to  have  an  examination." 

She  flushed,  looked  out  of  the  window.  He  was  conscious 
that  his  voice  was  not  impersonal  and  even. 

She  turned  quickly.  "Will,  you  always  say  my  troubles 
are  imaginary.  Why  can't  you  be  scientific?  I've  been  reading 
an  article  about  these  new  nerve-specialists,  and  they  claim 
that  lots  of  '  imaginary '  ailments,  yes,  and  lots  of  real  pain, 
too,  are  what  they  call  psychoses,  and  they  order  a  change  in 
a  woman's  way  of  living  so  she  can  get  on  a  higher  plane " 

"Wait!  Wait!  Whoa-up!  Wait  now!  Don't  mix  up 
your  Christian  Science  and  your  psychology!  They're  two 
entirely  different  fads!  You'll  be  mixing  in  socialism  next! 
You're  as  bad  as  Carrie,  with  your  '  psychoses.'  Why,  Good 
Lord,  Maud,  I  could  talk  about  neuroses  and  psychoses  and 
inhibitions  and  repressions  and  complexes  just  as  well  as  any 
damn  specialist,  if  I  got  paid  for  it,  if  I  was  in  the  city  and 
had  the  nerve  to  charge  the  fees  that  those  fellows  do.  If  a 
specialist  stung  you  for  a  hundred-dollar  consultation-fee  and 
told  you  to  go  to  New  York  to  duck  Dave's  nagging,  you'd 
do  it,  to  save  the  hundred  dollars!  But  you  know  me — I'm 
your  neighbor — you  see  me  mowing  the  lawn — you  figure  I'm 
just  a  plug  general  practitioner.  If  I  said,  '  Go  to  New  York/ 
Dave  and  you  would  laugh  your  heads  off  and  say,  '  Look  at 
the  airs  Will  is  putting  on.  What  does  he  think  he  is?  ' 

"  As  a  matter  of  fact,  you're  right.  You  have  a  perfectly 
well-developed  case  of  repression  of  sex  instinct,  and  it  raises 
the  old  Ned  with  your  body.  What  you  need  is  to  get  awav 
from  Dave  and  travel,  yes,  and  go  to  every  dog-gone  kind  of 
New  Thought  and  Bahai  and  Swami  and  Hooptedoodle  meet 
ing  you  can  find.  I  know  it,  well  's  you  do.  But  how  can 
I  advise  it?  Dave  would  be  up  here  taking  my  hide  off. 
I'm  willing  to  be  family  physician  and  priest  and  lawyer  and 
plumber  and  wet-nurse,  but  I  draw  the  line  at  making  Dave 
loosen  up  on  money.  Too  hard  a  job  in  weather  like  this! 
So,  savvy,  my  dear?  Believe  it  will  rain  if  this  heat 
keeps " 

"  But,  Will,  he'd  never  give  it  to  me  on  my  say-so.  He'd 
never  let  me  go  away.  You  know  how  Dave  is:  so  jolly  and 


MAIN    STREET  309 

liberal  in  society,  and  oh,  just  loves  to  match  quarters,  and  such 
a  perfect  sport  if  he  loses!  But  at  home  he  pinches  a  nickel 
till  the  buffalo  drips  blood.  I  have  to  nag  him  for  every 
single  dollar." 

"  Sure,  I  know,  but  it's  your  fight,  honey.  Keep  after  him. 
He'd  simply  resent  my  butting  in." 

He  crossed  over  and  patted  her  shoulder.  Outside  the  win 
dow,  beyond  the  fly-screen  that  was  opaque  with  dust  and 
cottonwood  lint,  Main  Street  was  hushed  except  for  the  im 
patient  throb  of  a  standing  motor  car.  She  took  his  firm 
hand,  pressed  his  knuckles  against  her  cheek. 

"  O  Will,  Dave  is  so  mean  and  little  and  noisy — the  shrimp  I 
You're  so  calm.  When  he's  cutting  up  at  parties  I  see  you 
standing  back  and  watching  him — the  way  a  mastiff  watches 
a  terrier." 

He  fought  for  professional  dignity  with,  "Dave  's  not  a 
bad  fellow." 

Lingeringly  she  released  his  hand.  "Will,  drop  round  by 
the  house  this  evening  and  scold  me.  Make  me  be  good  and 
sensible.  And  I'm  so  lonely." 

"  If  I  did,  Dave  would  be  there,  and  we'd  have  to  play  cards. 
It's  his  evening  off  from  the  store." 

"No.  The  clerk  just  got  called  to  Corinth — mother  sick. 
Dave  will  be  in  the  store  till  midnight.  Oh,  come  on  over. 
There's  some  lovely  beer  on  the  ice,  and  we  can  sit  and  talk 
and  be  all  cool  and  lazy.  That  wouldn't  be  wrong  of  us, 
would  it!  " 

"  No,  no,  course  it  wouldn't  be  wrong.    But  still,  oughtn't 

to '     He  saw  Carol,  slim  black  and  ivory,  cool,  scornful 

of  intrigue. 

"  All  right.    But  I'll  be  so  lonely." 

Her  throat  seemed  young,  above  her  loose  blouse  of  muslin 
and  machine-lace. 

"  Tell  you,  Maud:  I'll  drop  in  just  for  a  minute,  if  1  happen 
to  be  called  down  that  way." 

"  If  you'd  like,"  demurely.  "  0  Will,  I  just  want  comfort. 
I  know  you're  all  married,  and  my,  such  a  proud  papa,  and  of 

course  now If  I  could  just  sit  near  you  in  the  dusk,  and 

be  quiet,  and  forget  Dave!     You  will  come?  " 

"Sure  I  will!  " 

"  I'll  expect  you.  I'll  be  lonely  if  you  don't  come!  Good- 
by." 


3io  MAIN   STREET 

He  cursed  himself:  "  Darned  fool,  what  'd  I  promise  to  go 
for?  I'll  have  to  keep  my  promise,  or  she'll  feel  hurt.  She's 
a  good,  decent,  affectionate  girl,  and  Dave's  a  cheap  skate, 
all  right.  She's  got  more  life  to  her  than  Carol  has.  All  my 
fault,  anyway.  Why  can't  I  be  more  cagey,  like  Calibree  and 
McGanum  and  the  rest  of  the  doctors?  Oh,  I  am,  but  Maud's 
such  a  demanding  idiot.  Deliberately  bamboozling  me  into 
going  up  there  tonight.  Matter  of  principle:  ought  not  to 
let  her  get  away  with  it.  I  won't  go.  I'll  call  her  up  and 
tell  her  I  won't  go.  Me,  with  Carrie  at  home,  finest  little 
woman  in  the  world,  and  a  messy-minded  female  like  Maud 
Dyer — no,  sir!  Though  there's  no  need  of  hurting  her  feelings. 
I  may  just  drop  in  for  a  second,  to  tell  her  I  can't  stay.  All 
my  fault  anyway;  ought  never  to  have  started  in  and  jollied 
Maud  along  in  the  old  days.  If  it's  my  fault,  I've  got  no 
right  to  punish  Maud.  I  could  just  drop  in  for  a  second  and 
then  pretend  I  had  a  country  call  and  beat  it.  Damn  nuisance, 
though,  having  to  fake  up  excuses.  Lord,  why  can't  the  women 
let  you  alone?  Just  because  once  or  twice,  seven  hundred 
million  years  ago,  you  were  a  poor  fool,  why  can't  they  let 
you  forget  it?  Maud's  own  fault.  I'll  stay  strictly  away. 
Take  Carrie  to  the  movies,  and  forget  Maud.  .  .  .  But  it 
would  be  kind  of  hot  at  the  movies  tonight." 

He  fled  from  himself.  He  rammed  on  his  hat,  threw  his 
coat  over  his  arm,  banged  the  door,  locked  it,  tramped  down 
stairs.  "I  won't  go!  "  he  said  sturdily  and,  as  he  said  it, 
he  would  have  given  a  good  deal  to  know  whether  he  was 
going. 

He  was  refreshed,  as  always,  by  the  familiar  windows  and 
faces.  It  restored  his  soul  to  have  Sam  Clark  trustingly  bel 
low,  "  Better  come  down  to  the  lake  this  evening  and  have  a 
swim,  doc.  Ain't  you  going  to  open  your  cottage  at  all,  this 
summer?  By  golly,  we  miss  you."  He  noted  the  progress 
on  the  new  garage.  He  had  triumphed  in  the  laying  of  every 
course  of  bricks ;  in  them  he  had  seen  the  growth  of  the  town. 
His  pride  was  ushered  back  to  its  throne  by  the  respectfulness 
of  Oley  Sundquist:  "  Evenin',  doc!  The  woman  is  a  lot 
better.  That  was  swell  medicine  you  gave  her."  He  was 
calmed  by  the  mechanicalness  of  the  tasks  at  home:  burning 
the  gray  web  of  a  tent-worm  on  the  wild  cherry  tree,  sealing 
with  gum  a  cut  in  the  right  front  tire  of  the  car,  sprinkling 
the  road  before  the  house.  The  hose  was  cool  to  his  hands. 


MAIN   STREET  311 

As  the  bright  arrows  fell  with  a  faint  puttering  sound,  i 
crescent  of  blackness  was  formed  in  the  gray  dust. 

Dave  Dyer  came  along. 

"  Where  going,  Dave?  " 

"  Down  to  the  store.    Just  had  supper." 

"  But  Thursday  's  your  night  oft." 

"  Sure,  but  Pete  went  home.  His  mother  's  supposed  to 
be  sick.  Gosh,  these  clerks  you  get  nowadays — overpay  'em 
and  then  they  won't  work!  " 

"That's  tough,  Dave.  You'll  have  to  work  clear  up  till 
twelve,  then." 

"  Yup.  Better  drop  in  and  have  a  cigar,  if  you're  down 
town." 

"  Well,  I  may,  at  that.  May  have  to  go  down  and  see  Mrs. 
Champ  Perry.  She's  ailing.  So  long,  Dave." 

Kennicott  had  not  yet  entered  the  house.  He  was  con 
scious  that  Carol  was  near  him,  that  she  was  important,  that 
he  was  afraid  of  her  disapproval;  but  he  was  content  to  be 
alone.  When  he  had  finished  sprinkling  he  strolled  into  the 
house,  up  to  the  baby's  room,  and  cried  to  Hugh,  "  Story- 
time  for  the  old  man,  eh?  " 

Carol  was  in  a  low  chair,  framed  and  haloed  by  the  window 
behind  her,  an  image  in  pale  gold.  The  baby  curled  in  her 
lap,  his  head  on  her  arm,  listening  with  gravity  while  she 
sang  from  Gene  Field: 

'Tis  little  Luddy-Dud  in  the  morning— 

'Tis  little  Luddy-Dud  at  night; 

And  all  day  long 

'Tis  the  same  dear  song, 

Of  that  growing,  crowing,  knowing  little  sprite. 

Kennicott  was  enchanted. 

"  Maud  Dyer?     I  should  say  not!  " 

When  the  current  maid  bawled  up-stairs,  "  Supper  on  de 
table!  "  Kennicott  was  upon  his  back,  flapping  his  hands  in 
the  earnest  effort  to  be  a  seal,  thrilled  by  the  strength  with 
which  his  son  kicked  him.  He  slipped  his  arm  about  Carol's 
shoulder ;  he  went  down  to  supper  rejoicing  that  he  was  cleansed 
of  perilous  stuff.  While  Carol  was  putting  the  baby  to  bed 
he  sat  on  the  front  steps.  Nat  Hicks,  tailor  and  roue,  came 
to  sit  beside  him.  Between  waves  of  his  hand  as  he  drove 
off  mosquitos,  Nat  whispered,  "  Say,  doc,  you  don't  feel  like 


3i2  MAIN   STREET 

imagining  you're  a  bacheldore  again,  and  coming  out  for  a  Time 
tonight,  do  you?  " 

"  As  how?  " 

"  You  know  this  new  dressmaker,  Mrs.  Swiftwaite? — swell 
dame  with  blondine  hair?  Well,  she's  a  pretty  good  goer. 
Me  and  Harry  Haydock  are  going  to  take  her  and  that  fat 
wren  that  works  in  the  Bon  Ton — nice  kid,  too — on  an  auto 
ride  tonight.  Maybe  we'll  drive  down  to  that  farm  Harry 
bought.  We're  taking  some  beer,  and  some  of  the  smoothest 
rye  you  ever  laid  tongue  to.  I'm  not  predicting  none,  but 
if  we  don't  have  a  picnic,  I'll  miss  my  guess." 

"Go  to  it.  No  skin  off  my  ear,  Nat.  Think  I  want  to 
be  fifth  wheel  in  the  coach?  " 

"  No,  but  look  here:  The  little  Swiftwaite  has  a  friend  with 
her  from  Winona,  dandy  looker  and  some  gay  bird,  and  Harry 
and  me  thought  maybe  you'd  like  to  sneak  off  for  one  evening." 

"  No— no " 

"  Rats  now,  doc,  forget  your  everlasting  dignity.  You  used 
to  be  a  pretty  good  sport  yourself,  when  you  were  foot-free." 

It  may  have  been  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Swiftwaite's  friend 
remained  to  Kennicott  an  ill-told  rumor,  it  may  have  been 
Carol's  voice,  wistful  in  the  pallid  evening  as  she  sang  to 
Hugh,  it  may  have  been  natural  and  commendable  virtue,  but 
certainly  he  was  positive: 

"  Nope.  I'm  married  for  keeps.  Don't  pretend  to  be  any 
saint.  Like  to  get  out  and  raise  Cain  and  shoot  a  few  drinks. 

But  a  fellow  owes  a  duty Straight  now,  won't  you  feel 

like  a  sneak  when  you  come  back  to  the  missus  after  your 
jamboree?  " 

"  Me?  My  moral  in  life  is,  l  What  they  don't  know  won't 
hurt  :em  none.'  The  way  to  handle  wives,  like  the  fellow 
says,  is  to  catch  'em  early,  treat  'em  rough,  and  tell  'em 
nothing!  " 

"Well,  that's  your  business,  I  suppose.  But  I  can't  get 
away  with  it.  Besides  that — way  I  figure  it,  this  illicit  love- 
making  is  the  one  game  that  you  always  lose  at.  If  you  do 
lose,  you  feel  foolish;  and  if  you  win,  as  soon  as  you  find  out 
how  little  it  is  that  you've  been  scheming  for,  why  then  you 
lose  worse  than  ever.  Nature  stinging  us,  as  usual.  But  at 
that,  I  guess  a  lot  of  wives  in  this  burg  would  be  surprised  if 
they  knew  everything  that  goes  on  behind  their  backs,  eh, 
Nattie? " 


MAIN   STREET 

"Would  they!  Say,  boy!  If  the  good  wives  knew  what 
some  of  the  boys  get  away  with  when  they  go  down  to  the 
Cities,  why,  they'd  throw  a  fit!  Sure  you  won't  come,  doc? 
Think  of  getting  all  cooled  off  by  a  good  long  drive,  and  then 
the  lov-e-ly  Swiftwaite's  white  hand  mixing  you  a  good  stiff 
highball!  "' 

"Nope.  Nope.  Sorry.  Guess  I  won't,"  "grumbled 
Kennicott. 

He  was  glad  that  Nat  showed  signs  of  going.  But  he  was 
restless.  He  heard  Carol  on  the  stairs.  "  Come  have  a  seat — 
have  the  whole  earth!  "  he  shouted  jovially. 

She  did  not  answer  his  joviality.  She  sat  on  the  porch, 
rocked  silently,  then  sighed,  "  So  many  mosquitos  out  here. 
You  haven't  had  the  screen  fixed." 

As  though  he  was  testing  her  he  said  quietly,  "  Head  aching 
again?  " 

"Oh,  not  much,  but This  maid  is  so  slow  to  learn. 

I  have  to  show  her  everything.  I  had  to  clean  most  of  the 
silver  myself.  And  Hugh  was  so  bad  all  afternoon.  He 
whined  so.  Poor  soul,  he  was  hot,  but  he  did  wear  me  out." 

"  Uh You  usually  want  to  get  out.    Like  to  walk  down 

to  the  lake  shore?  (The  girl  can  stay  home.)  Or  go  to 
the  movies?  Come  on,  let's  go  to  the  movies!  Or  shal/  we 
jump  in  the  car  and  run  out  to  Sam's,  for  a  swim?  " 

"  If  you  don't  mind,  dear,  I'm  afraid  I'm  rather  tired." 

"Why  don't  you  sleep  down-stairs  tonight,  on  the  couch? 
Be  cooler.  I'm  going  to  bring  down  my  mattress.  Come  on! 
Keep  the  old  man  company.  Can't  tell — I  might  get  scared  of 
burglars.  Lettin'  little  fellow  like  me  stay  all  alone  by  him 
self!  " 

"  It's  sweet  of  you  to  think  of  it,  but  I  like  my  own  room 
so  much.  But  you  go  ahead  and  do  it,  dear.  Why  don't 
you  sleep  on  the  couch,  instead  of  putting  your  mattress  on 

the  floor?    Well I  believe  I'll  run  in  and  read  for  just 

a  second — want  to  look  at  the  last  Vogue — and  then  perhaps 
I'll  go  by-by.  Unless  you  want  me,  dear?  Of  course  if 
there's  anything  you  really  want  me  for ?  " 

"  No.  No.  .  .  .  Matter  of  fact,  I  really  ought  to  run 
down  and  see  Mrs.  Champ  Perry.  She's  ailing.  So  you  skip 

in  and May  drop  in  at  the  drug  store.    If  I'm  not  home 

when  you  get  sleepy,  don't  wait  up  for  me." 

He  kissed  her,  rambled  off,  nodded  to  Jim  Rowland,  stopped 


3ij  MAIN   STREET 

indifferently  to  speak  to  Mrs.  Terry  Gould.  But  his  Heart 
was  racing,  his  stomach  was  constricted.  He  walked  more 
slowly.  He  reached  Dave  Dyer's  yard.  He  glanced  in.  On 
the  porch,  sheltered  by  a  wild-grape  vine,  was  the  figure  of  a 
woman  in  white.  He  heard  the  swing-couch  creak  as  she 
sat  up  abruptly,  peered,  then  leaned  back  and  pretended 
to  relax. 

"  Be  nice  to  have  some  cool  beer.    Just  drop  hi  for  a  second," 
he  insisted,  as  he  opened  the  Dyer  gate. 


Mrs.  Bogart  was  calling  upon  Carol,  protected  by  Aunt 
Bessie  Smail. 

"  Have  you  heard  about  this  awful  woman  that's  supposed 
to  have  come  here  to  do  dressmaking — a  Mrs.  Swiftwaite — 
awful  peroxide  blonde?  "  moaned  Mrs.  Bogart.,  "  They  say 
there's  some  of  the  awfullest  goings-on  at  her  house — mere 
boys  and  old  gray-headed  rips  sneaking  in  there  evenings 
and  drinking  licker  and  every  kind  of  goings-on.  We  women 
can't  never  realize  the  carnal  thoughts  in  the  hearts  of  men. 
I  tell  you,  even  though  I  been  acquainted  with  Will  Kennicott 
almost  since  he  was  a  mere  boy,  seems  like,  I  wouldn't  trust 
even  him!  Who  knows  what  designin'  women  might  tempt 
him!  Especially  a  doctor,  with  women  rushin'  in  to  see  him 
at  his  office  and  all!  You  know  I  never  hint  around,  but 
haven't  you  felt  that " 

Carol  was  furious.  "  I  don't  pretend  that  Will  has  no 
faults.  But  one  thing  I  do  know:  He's  as  simple-hearted 
about  what  you  call  *  goings-on '  as  a  babe.  And  if  he  ever 
were  such  a  sad  dog  as  to  look  at  another  woman,  I  certainly 
hope  he'd  have  spirit  enough  to  do  the  tempting,  and  not  be 
coaxed  into  it,  as  in  your  depressing  picture!  " 

"Why,  what  a  wicked  thing  to  say,  Carrie!  "  from  Aunt 
Bessie. 

"  No,  I  mean  it!  Oh,  of  course,  I  don't  mean  it!  But 

I  know  every  thought  in  his  head  so  well  that  he  couldn't 

hide  anything  even  if  he  wanted  to.  Now  this  morning 

He  was  out  late,  last  night;  he  had  to  go  see  Mrs.  Perry, 
who  is  ailing,  and  then  fix  a  man's  hand,  and  this  morning 
he  was  so  quiet  and  thoughtful  at  breakfast  and "  She 


MAIN   STREET  315 

leaned  forward,  breathed  dramatically  to  the  two  perched 
harpies,  "  What  do  you  suppose  he  was  thinking  of?  " 

"  What?  "  trembled  Mrs.  Bogart. 

"  Whether  the  grass  needs  cutting,  probably!  There,  there  I 
Don't  mind  my  naughtiness.  I  have  some  fresh-made  raisin 
rookies  for  you.'* 


CHAPTER  XXVI 


CAROL'S  liveliest  interest  was  in  her  walks  with  the  baby, 
Hugh  wanted  to  know  what  the  box-elder  tree  said,  and  what 
the  Ford  garage  said,  and  what  the  big  cloud  said,  and  she 
told  him,  with  a  feeling  that  she  was  not  in  the  least  making 
up  stories,  but  discovering  the  souls  of  things.  They  had  an 
especial  fondness  for  the  hitching-post  in  front  of  the  mill. 
It  was  a  brown  post,  stout  and  agreeable;  the  smooth  leg 
of  it  held  the  sunlight,  while  its  neck,  grooved  by  hitching- 
straps,  tickled  one's  fingers.  Carol  had  never  been  awake 
to  the  earth  except  as  a  show  of  changing  color  and  great 
satisfying  masses;  she  had  lived  in  people  and  in  ideas  about 
having  ideas;  but  Hugh's  questions  made  her  attentive  to  the 
comedies  of  sparrows,  robins,  blue  jays,  yellowhammers ;  she 
regained  her  pleasure  in  the  arching  {light  of  swallows,  and 
added  to  it  a  solicitude  about  their  nests  and  family  squabbles. 

She  forgot  her  seasons  of  boredom.  She  said  to  Hugh, 
"  We're  two  fat  disreputable  old  minstrels  roaming  round  the 
world,"  and  he  echoed  her,  "  Roamin'  round — roamin'  round." 

The  high  adventure,  the  secret  place  to  which  they  both 
fled  joyously,  was  the  house  of  Miles  and  Bea  and  Olaf 
Bjornstam. 

Kennicott  steadily  disapproved  of  the  Bjornstams.  He  pro 
tested,  "  What  do  you  want  to  talk  to  that  crank  for?  "  He 
hinted  that  a  former  "  Swede  hired  girl "  was  low  company 
for  the  son  of  Dr.  Will  Kennicott.  She  did  not  explain.  She 
did  not  quite  understand  it  herself;  did  not  know  that  in  the 
Bjornstams  she  found  her  friends,  her  club,  her  sympathy  > 
and  her  ration  of  blessed  cynicism.  For  a  time  the  gossip  of 
Juanita  Haydock  and  the  Jolly  Seventeen  had  been  a  refuge 
from  the  droning  of  Aunt  Bessie,  but  the  relief  had  not  con 
tinued.  The  young  matrons  made  her  nervous.  They  talked 
so  loud,  always  so  loud.  They  filled  a  room  with  clashing 
cackle;  their  jests  and  gags  they  repeated  nine  times  over. 
Unconsciously,  she  had  discarded  the  Jolly  Seventeen,  Guy 

316 


MAIN    STREET  317 

Pollock,  Vida,  and  every  one  save  Mrs.  Dr.  Westlake  and  the 
friends  whom  she  did  not  clearly  know  as  friends — the 
Bjornstams. 

To  Hugh,  the  Red  Swede  was  the  most  heroic  and  powerful 
person  in  the  world.  With  unrestrained  adoration  he  trotted 
after  while  Miles  fed  the  cows,  chased  his  one  pig — an  animal 
of  lax  and  migratory  instincts — or  dramatically  slaughtered  a 
chicken.  And  to  Hugh,  Olaf  was  lord  among  mortal  men,  less 
stalwart  than  the  old  monarch,  King  Miles,  but  more  under 
standing  of  the  relations  and  values  of  things,  of  small  sticks, 
lone  playing-cards,  and  irretrievably  injured  hoops. 

Carol  saw,  though  she  did  not  admit,  that  Olaf  was  not 
only  more  beautiful  than  her  own  dark  child,  but  more  gracious. 
Olaf  was  a  Norse  chieftain:  straight,  sunny-haired,  large- 
limbed,  resplendently  amiable  to  his  subjects.  Hugh  was  a 
vulgarian;  a  bustling  business  man.  It  was  Hugh  that  bounced 
and  said  "  Let's  play  ";  Olaf  that  opened  luminous  blue  eyes 
and  agreed  "  All  right,"  in  condescending  gentleness.  If  Hugh 
batted  him — and  Hugh  did  bat  him — Olaf  was  unafraid  but 
shocked.  In  magnificent  solitude  he  marched  toward  the 
house,  while  Hugh  bewailed  his  sin  and  the  overclouding  of 
august  favor. 

The  two  friends  played  with  an  imperial  chariot  which 
Miles  had  made  out  of  a  starch-box  and  four  red  spools;  to 
gether  they  stuck  switches  into  a  mouse-hole,  with  vast  satisfac 
tion  though  entirely  without  known  results. 

Bea,  the  chubby  and  humming  Bea,  impartially  gave  cookies 
and  scoldings  to  both  children,  and  if  Carol  refused  a  cup  of 
coffee  and  a  wafer  of  buttered  knackebrod,  she  was  desolated. 

Miles  had  done  well  with  his  dairy.  He  had  six  cows, 
two  hundred  chickens,  a  cream  separator,  a  Ford  truck.  In  the 
spring  he  had  built  a  two-room  addition  to  his  shack.  That 
illustrious  building  was  to  Hugh  a  carnival.  Uncle  Miles  did 
the  most  spectacular,  unexpected  things:  ran  up  the  ladder; 
stood  on  the  ridge-pole,  waving  a  hammer  and  singing  some 
thing  about  "To  arms,  my  citizens";  nailed  shingles  faster 
than  Aunt  Bessie  could  iron  handkerchiefs;  and  lifted  a  two- 
by-six  with  Hugh  riding  on  one  end  and  Olaf  on  the  other. 
Uncle  Miles's  most  ecstatic  trick  was  to  make  figures  not  on 
paper  but  right  on  a  new  pine  board,  with  the  broadest  softest 
pencil  in  the  world.  There  was  a  thing  worth  seeing! 

The  tools!    In  his  office  Father  had  tools  fascinating  in  their 


3tS  MAIN   STREET 

shininess  and  curious  shapes,  but  they  were  sharp,  they  were 
something  called  sterized,  and  they  distinctly  were  not  for 
boys  to  touch.  In  fact  it  was  a  good  dodge  to  volunteer  "  I 
must  not  touch,"  when  you  looked  at  the  tools  on  the  glass 
shelves  in  Father's  office.  But  Uncle  Miles,  who  was  a  person 
altogether  superior  to  Father,  let  you  handle  all  his  kit  except 
the  saws.  T'iere  was  a  hammer  with  a  silver  head ;  there  was  a 
metal  thing  like  a  big  L;  there  was  a  magic  instrument,  very 
precious,  made  out  of  costly  red  wood  and  gold,  with  a  tube 
which  contained  a  drop — no,  it  wasn't  a  drop,  it  was  a  nothing, 
which  lived  in  the  water,  but  the  nothing  looked  like  a  drop, 
and  it  ran  in  a  frightened  way  up  and  down  the  tube,  no 
matter  how  cautiously  you  tilted  the  magic  instrument.  And 
there  were  nails,  very  different  and  clever — big  valiant  spikes, 
middle-sized  ones  which  were  not  very  interesting,  and  shingle- 
nails  much  jollier  than  the  fussed-up  fairies  in  the  yellow 
book. 


While  he  had  worked  on  the  addition  Miles  had  talked 
frankly  to  Carol.  He  admitted  now  that  so  long  as  he  stayed 
in  Gopher  Prairie  he  would  remain  a  pariah.  Bea's  Lutheran 
friends  were  as  much  offended  by  his  agnostic  gibes  as  the 
merchants  by  his  radicalism.  "  And  I  can't  seem  to  keep  my 
mouth  shut.  I  think  I'm  being  a  baa-lamb,  and  not  springing 
any  theories  wilder  than  'c-a-t  spells  cat/  but  when  folks 
have  gone,  I  re'lize  I've  been  stepping  on  their  pet  religious 
corns.  Oh,  the  mill  foreman  keeps  dropping  in,  and  that  Danish 
shoemaker,  and  one  fellow  from  Elder's  factory,  and  a  few 
Svenskas,  but  you  know  Be:  big  good-hearted  wench  like 
her  wants  a  lot  of  folks  around — likes  to  fuss  over  'em — never 
satisfied  unless  she  tiring  herself  out  making  coffee  for  some 
body. 

"  Once  she  kidnapped  me  and  drug  me  to  the  Methodist 
Church.  I  goes  in,  pious  as  Widow  Bogart,  and  sits  still 
and  never  cracks  a  smile  while  the  preacher  is  favoring  us 
with  his  misinformation  on  evolution.  But  afterwards,  when 
the  old  stalwarts  were  pumphandling  everybody  at  the  door 
and  calling  'em  '  Brother '  and  '  Sister,'  they  let  me  sail  right 
by  with  nary  a  clinch.  They  figure  I'm  the  town  badman. 
Always  will  be,  I  guess.  It'll  have  to  be  Olaf  who  goes  on 


MAIN    STREET  319 

And  sometimes Blamed  if  I  don't  feel  like  coming  out  and 

saying,  l  I've  been  conservative.  Nothing  to  it.  Now  I'm 
going  to  start  something  in  these  rotten  one-horse  lumber- 
camps  west  of  town.'  But  Be's  got  me  hynotized.  Lord,  Mrs. 
Kennicott,  do  you  re'lize  what  a  jolly,  square,  faithful  woman 

she  is?  And  I  love  Olaf Oh  well,  I  won't  go  and  get 

sentimental  on  you. 

"  Course  I've  had  thoughts  of  pulling  up  stakes  and  going 
West.  Maybe  if  they  didn't  know  it  beforehand,  they  wouldn't 
find  out  I'd  ever  been  guilty  of  trying  to  think  for  myself. 
But — oh,  I've  worked  hard,  and  built  up  this  dairy  business, 
and  I  hate  to  start  all  over  again,  and  move  Be  and  the  kid 
into  another  one-room  shack.  That's  how  they  get  us!  En 
courage  us  to  be  thrifty  and  own  our  own  houses,  and  then, 
by  golly,  they've  got  us;  they  know  we  won't  dare  risk 
everything  by  committing  lez — what  is  it?  lez  majesty? — I 
mean  they  know  we  won't  be  hinting  around  that  if  we  had 
a  co-operative  bank,  we  could  get  along  without  Stowbody. 

Well As  long  as  I  can  sit  and  play  pinochle  with  Be, 

and  tell  whoppers  to  Olaf  about  his  daddy's  adventures  in  the 
woods,  and  how  he  snared  a  wapaloosie  and  knew  Paul  Bun- 
yan,  why,  I  don't  mind  being  a  bum.  It's  just  for  them  that 
I  mind.  Say!  Say!  Don't  whisper  a  word  to  Be,  but  when 
I  get  this  addition  done,  I'm  going  to  buy  her  a  phonograph  1  " 

He  did. 

While  she  was  busy  with  the  activities  her  work-hungry 
muscles  found — washing,  ironing,  mending,  baking,  dusting, 
preserving,  plucking  a  chicken,  painting  the  sink;  tasks  which, 
because  she  was  Miles's  full  partner,  were  exciting  and  crea 
tive — Bea  listened  to  the  phonograph  records  with  rapture  like 
that  of  cattle  in  a  warm  stable.  The  addition  gave  her  a 
kitchen  with  a  bedroom  above.  The  original  one-room  shack 
was  now  a  living-room,  with  the  phonograph,  a  genuine  leather- 
upholstered  golden-oak  rocker,  and  a  picture  of  Governor  John 
Johnson. 

In  late  July  Carol  went  to  the  Bjornstams'  desirous  of  a 
chance  to  express  her  opinion  of  Beavers  and  Calibrees  and 
Joralemons.  She  found  Olaf  abed,  restless  from  a  slight  fever, 
and  Bea  flushed  and  dizzy  but  trying  to  keep  up  her  work. 
She  lured  Miles  aside  and  worried: 

"  They  don't  look  at  all  well.    What's  the  matter?  " 

"Their  stomachs  are  out  of  whack.    I  wanted  to  call  in 


320  MAIN   STREET 

Doc  Kennicott,  but  Be  thinks  the  doc  doesn't  like  us — 
she  thinks  maybe  he's  sore  because  you  come  down  here.  But 
I'm  getting  worried." 

"  I'm  going  to  call  the  doctor  at  once." 

She  yearned  over  Olaf.  His  lambent  eyes  were  stupid,  he 
moaned,  he  rubbed  his  forehead. 

"  Have  they  been  eating  something  that's  been  bad  for 
them?  "  she  fluttered  to  Miles. 

"  Might  be  bum  water.  I'll  tell  you:  We  used  to  get  our 
water  at  Oscar  Eklund's  place,  over  across  the  street,  but 
Oscar  kept  dinging  at  me,  and  hinting  I  was  a  tightwad  not 
to  dig  a  well  of  my  own.  One  time  he  said,  '  Sure,  you 
socialists  are  great  on  divvying  up  other  folks'  money — and 
water!  '  I  knew  if  he  kept  it  up  there'd  be  a  fuss,  and  I 
ain't  safe  to  have  around,  once  a  fuss  starts;  I'm  likely  to 
forget  myself  and  let  loose  with  a  punch  in  the  snoot.  I 
offered  to  pay  Oscar  but  he  refused — he'd  rather  have  the 
chance  to  kid  me.  So  I  starts  getting  water  down  at  Mrs. 
Fageros's,  in  the  hollow  there,  and  I  don't  believe  it's  real 
good.  Figuring  to  dig  my  own  well  this  fall." 

One  scarlet  word  was  before  Carol's  eyes  while  she  listened. 
She  fled  to  Kennicott's  office.  He  gravely  heard  her  out, 
nodded,  said,  "  Be  right  over." 

He  examined  Bea  and  Olaf.  He  shook  his  head.  "Yes. 
Looks  to  me  like  typhoid." 

"  Golly,  I've  seen  typhoid  in  lumber-camps,"  groaned  Miles, 
all  the  strength  dripping  out  of  him.  "  Have  they  got  it 
very  bad?  " 

"  Oh,  we'll  take  good  care  of  them,"  said  Kennicott,  and 
for  the  first  time  in  their  acquaintance  he  smiled  on  Mile? 
and  clapped  his  shoulder. 

"  Won't  you  need  a  nurse?  "  demanded  Carol. 

"  Why "  To  Miles,  Kennicott  hinted,  "  Couldn't  you 

get  Bea's  cousin,  Tina?  " 

"  She's  down  at  the  old  folks',  in  the  country." 

"  Then  let  me  do  it!  "  Carol  insisted.  "  They  need  some 
one  to  cook  for  them,  and  isn't  it  good  to  give  them  sponge 
baths,  in  typhoid?  " 

"Yes.  All  right.'?  Kennicott  was  automatic;  he  was  the 
official,  the  physician.  "  I  guess  probably  it  would  be  hard  to 
get  a  nurse  here  in  town  just  now.  Mrs.  Stiver  is  busy  with 
an  obstetrical  case,  and  that  town  nurse  of  yours  is  off  on 


MAIN   STREET  321 

vacation,  ain't  she?  All  right,  Bjornstam  can  spell  you  at 
night." 

All  week,  from  eight  each  morning  till  midnight,  Carol  fed 
them,  bathed  them,  smoothed  sheets,  took  temperatures. 
Miles  refused  to  let  her  cook.  Terrified,  pallid,  noiseless  in 
stocking  feet,  he  did  the  kitchen  work  and  the  sweeping,  his 
big  red  hands  awkwardly  careful.  Kennicott  came  in  three 
times  a  day,  unchangingly  tender  and  hopeful  in  the  sick- 
Broom,  evenly  polite  to  Miles. 

Carol  understood  how  great  was  her  love  for  her  friends. 
It  bore  her  through;  it  made  her  arm  steady  and  tireless  to 
bathe  them.  What  exhausted  her  was  the  sight  of  Bea  and 
Olaf  turned  into  flaccid  invalids,  uncomfortably  flushed  after 
taking  food,  begging  for  the  healing  of  sleep  at  night. 

During  the  second  week  Olaf's  powerful  legs  were  flabby. 
Spots  of  a  viciously  delicate  pink  came  out  on  his  chest  and 
back.  His  cheeks  sank.  He  looked  frightened.  His  tongue 
was  brown  and  revolting.  His  confident  voice  dwindled  to  a 
bewildered  murmur,  ceaseless  and  racking. 

Bea  had  stayed  on  her  feet  too  long  at  the  beginning.  The 
moment  Kennicott  had  ordered  her  to  bed  she  had  begun  to 
collapse.  One  early  evening  she  startled  them  by  screaming, 
in  an  intense  abdominal  pain,  and  within  half  an  hour  she  was 
in  a  delirium.  Till  dawn  Carol  was  with  her,  and  not  all  of 
Bea's  groping  through  the  blackness  of  half-delirious  pain 
was  so  pitiful  to  Carol  as  the  way  in  which  Miles  silently 
peered  into  the  room  from  the  top  of  the  narrow  stairs.  Carol 
slept  three  hours  next  morning,  and  ran  back.  Bea  was  alto 
gether  delirious  but  she  muttered  nothing  save,  "  Olaf — ve 
have  such  a  good  time " 

At  ten,  while  Carol  was  preparing  an  ice-bag  in  the  kitchen, 
Miles  answered  a  knock.  At  the  front  door  she  saw 
Vida  Sherwin,  Maud  Dyer,  and  Mrs.  Zitterel,  wife  of  the 
Baptist  pastor.  They  were  carrying  grapes,  and  women's- 
magazines,  magazines  with  high-colored  pictures  and  optimistic 
fiction. 

"We  just  heard  your  wife  was  sick.  WeVe  come  to  see 
if  there  isn't  something  we  can  do,"  chirruped  Vida. 

Miles  looked  steadily  at  the  three  women.  "  You're  too 
late.  You  can't  do  nothing  now.  Bea's  always  kind  of  hoped 
that  you  folks  would  come  see  her.  She  wanted  to  have  a 
chance  and  be  friends.  She  used  to  sit  waiting  for  somebody 


322  MAIN   STREET 

to  knock.  I've  seen  her  sitting  here,  waiting.  Now Ob; 

you  ain't  worth  God-damning."  He  shut  the  door. 

All  day  Carol  watched  Olaf's  strength  oozing.  He  was 
emaciated.  His  ribs  were  grim  clear  lines,  his  skin  was 
clammy,  his  pulse  was  feeble  but  terrifyingly  rapid.  It  beat — 
beat — beat  in  a  drum-roll  of  death.  Late  that  afternoon 
he  sobbed,  and  died. 

Bea  did  not  know  it.  She  was  delirious.  Next  morning, 
when  she  went,  she  did  not  know  that  Olaf  would  no  longer 
swing  his  lath  sword  on  the  door-step,  no  longer  rule  his 
subjects  of  the  cattle-yard;  that  Miles's  son  would  not  go 
East  to  college. 

Miles,  Carol,  Kennicott  were  silent.  They  washed  the  bodies 
together,  their  eyes  veiled. 

"  Go  home  now  and  sleep.  You're  pretty  tired.  I  can't  ever 
pay  you  back  for  what  you  done,"  Miles  whispered  to  Carol. 

"  Yes.  But  I'll  be  back  here  tomorrow.  Go  with  you  to 
the  funeral,"  she  said  laboriously. 

When  the  time  for  the  funeral  came,  Carol  was  in  bed, 
collapsed.  She  assumed  that  neighbors  would  go.  They  had 
not  told  her  that  word  of  Miles's  rebuff  to  Vida  had  spread 
through  town,  a  cyclonic  fury. 

It  was  only  by  chance  that,  leaning  on  her  elbow  in  bed, 
she  glanced  through  the  window  and  saw  the  funeral  of  Bea 
and  Olaf.  There  was  no  music,  no  carriages.  There  was  only 
Miles  Bjornstam,  in  his  black  wedding-suit,  walking  quite 
alone,  head  down,  behind  the  shabby  hearse  that  bore  the 
bodies  of  his  wife  and  baby. 

An  hour  after,  Hugh  came  into  her  room  crying,  and  when 
she  said  as  cheerily  as  she  could,  "  WKat  is  it,  dear?  "  he  be 
sought,  "  Mummy,  I  want  to  go  play  with  Olaf." 

That  afternoon  Juanita  Haydock  dropped  in  to  brighten 
Carol.  She  said,  "Too  bad  about  this  Bea  that  was  your 
hired  girl.  But  I  don't  waste  any  sympathy  on  that  man  of 
hers.  Everybody  says  he  drank  too  much,  and  treated  his 
CamUy  awful,  and  that's  how  they  got  sick." 


CHAPTER  XXVII 


A  LETTER  from  Raymie  Wutherspoon,  in  France,  said  that  he 
had  been  sent  to  the  front,  been  slightly  wounded,  been  made 
a  captain.  From  Vida's  pride  Carol  sought  to  draw  a  stimulant 
to  rouse  her  from  depression. 

Miles  had  sold  his  dairy.  He  had  several  thousand  dollars. 
To  Carol  he  said  good-by  with  a  mumbled  word,  a  harsh 
hand-shake,  "  Going  to  buy  a  farm  in  northern  Alberta — far 
off  from  folks  as  I  can  get."  He  turned  sharply  away,  but 
he  did  not  walk  with  his  former  spring.  His  shoulders  seemed 
old. 

It  was  said  that  before  he  went  he  cursed  the  town. 
There  was  talk  of  arresting  him,  of  riding  him  on  a  rail.  It 
was  rumored  that  at  the  station  old  Champ  Perry  rebuked 
him,  "  You  better  not  come  back  here.  We've  got  respect  for 
your  dead,  but  we  haven't  got  any  for  a  blasphemer  and  a 
traitor  that  won't  do  anything  for  his  country  and  only  bought 
one  Liberty  Bond." 

Some  of  the  people  who  had  been  at  the  station  declared  that 
Miles  made  some  dreadful  seditious  retort:  something  about 
loving  German  workmen  more  than  American  bankers;  but 
others  asserted  that  he  couldn't  find  one  word  with  which  to 
answer  the  veteran;  tfca^he  merely  sneaked  up  on  the  plat 
form  of  the  train.  He  must  have  felt  guilty,  everybody  agreed, 
for  as  the  train  left  town,  a  farmer  saw  him  standing  in  the 
vestibule  and  looking  out. 

His  house — with  the  addition  which  he  had  built  four 
months  ago — was  very  near  the  track  on  which  his  train  passed. 

When  Carol  went  there,  for  the  last  time,  she  found  Olaf's 
chariot  with  its  red  spool  wheels  standing  in  the  sunny  corner 
beside  the  stable.  She  wondered  if  a  quick  eye  could  have 
noticed  it  from  a  train. 

That  day  and  that  week  she  went  reluctantly  to  Red  Cross 
work;  she  stitched  and  packed  silently,  while  Vida  read  the  war 
bulletins.  And  she  said  nothing  at  all  when  Kennicott  com- 

323 


324  MAIN   STREET 

mented,  "  From  what  Champ  says,  I  guess  Bjornstam  was  a 
bad  egg,  after  all.  In  spite  of  Bea,  don't  know  but  what  the 
citizens'  committee  ought  to  have  forced  him  to  be  patriotic — 
let  on  like  they  could  send  him  to  jail  if  he  didn't  volunteer  and 
come  through  for  bonds  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  They've  worked 
that  stunt  fine  with  all  these  German  farmers." 


She  found  no  inspiration  but  she  did  find  a  dependable 
kindness  in  Mrs.  Westlake,  and  at  last  she  yielded  to  the  old 
woman's  receptivity  and  had  relief  in  sobbing  the  story  of 
Bea. 

Guy  Pollock  she  often  met  on  the  street,  but  he  was  merely 
a  pleasant  voice  which  said  things  about  Charles  Lamb  and 
sunsets. 

Her  most  positive  experience  was  the  revelation  of  Mrs. 
Flickerbaugh,  the  tall,  thin,  twitchy  wife  of  the  attorney. 
Carol  encountered  her  at  the  drug  stc~e. 

"  Walking?  "  snapped  Mrs.  Flickerbaugh. 

"Why,  yes." 

"  Humph.  Guess  you're  the  only  female  in  this  town  that 
retains  the  use  of  her  legs.  Come  home  and  have  a  cup  o' 
tea  with  me." 

Because  she  had  nothing  else  to  do,  Carol  went.  But  she 
was  uncomfortable  in  the  presence  of  the  amused  stares  which 
Mrs.  Flickerbaugh's  raiment  drew.  Today,  in  reeking  early 
August,  she  wore  a  man's  cap,  a  skinny  fur  like  a  dead  cat, 
a  necklace  of  imitation  pearls,  a  scabrous  satin  blouse,  and  a 
thick  cloth  skirt  hiked  up  in  front. 

"  Come  in.  Sit  down.  Stick  the  baby  in  that  rocker.  Hope 
you  don't  mind  the  house  looking  like  a  rat's  nest.  You  don't 
like  this  town.  Neither  do  I,"  said  Mrs.  Flickerbaugh. 

«  why " 

"  Course  you  don't!  " 

"  Well  then,  I  don't!  But  I'm  sure  that  some  day  I'll  find 
some  solution.  Probably  I'm  a  hexagonal  peg.  Solution:  nnd 
the  hexagonal  hole."  Carol  was  very  brisk. 

"  How  do  you  know  you  ever  will  find  it?  " 

"  There's  Mrs.  Westlake.  She's  naturally  a  big-city  woman — 
she  ought  to  have  a  lovely  old  house  in  Philadelphia  or  Boston 
•—but  she  escapes  by  being  absorbed  in  reading." 

"  You  be  satisfied  to  never  do  anything  but  read?  " 


MAIN   STREET  325 

"No,  but Heavens,  one  can't  go  on  hating  a  town 

always!  " 

"Why  not?  lean!  I've  hated  it  for  thirty- two  years.  I'll 
die  here — and  I'll  hate  it  till  I  die.  I  ought  to  have  been  a 
business  woman.  I  had  a  good  deal  of  talent  for  tending  to 
figures.  Ail  gone  now.  Some  folks  think  I'm  crazy.  Guess 
I  am.  Sit  and  grouch.  Go  to  church  and  sing  hymns.  Folks 
think  I'm  religious.  Tut!  Trying  to  forget  washing  and 
ironing  and  mending  socks.  Want  an  office  of  my  own,  and 
sell  things.  Julius  never  hear  of  it.  Too  late." 

Carol  sat  on  the  gritty  couch,  and  sank  into  fear.  Could 
this  drabness  of  life  keep  up  forever,  then?  Would  she  some 
day  so  despise  herself  and  her  neighbors  that  she  too  would 
walk  Main  Street  an  old  skinny  eccentric  woman  in  a  mangy 
cat's- fur?  As  she  crept  home  she  felt  that  the  trap  had 
finally  closed.  She  went  into  the  house,  a  frail  small  woman, 
still  winsome  but  hopeless  of  eye  as  she  staggered  with  the 
weight  of  the  drowsy  boy  in  her  arms. 

She  sat  alone  on  the  porch,  that  evening.  It  seemed  that 
Kennicott  had  to  make  a  professional  call  on  Mrs.  Dave 
Dyer. 

Under  the  stilly  boughs  and  the  black  gauze  of  dusk  the 
street  was  meshed  in  silence.  There  was  but  the  hum  of 
motor  tires  crunching  the  road,  the  creak  of  a  rocker  on  the 
Rowlands'  porch,  the  slap  of  a  hand  attacking  a  mosquito,  a 
heat-weary  conversation  starting  and  dying,  the  precise  rhythm 
of  crickets,  the  thud  of  moths  against  the  screen — sounds  that 
were  a  distilled  silence.  It  was  a  street  beyond  the  end  of  the 
world,  beyond  the  boundaries  of  hope.  Though  she  should  sit 
here  forever,  no  brave  procession,  no  one  who  was  interesting, 
would  be  coming  by.  It  was  tediousness  made  tangible,  a 
street  builded  of  lassitude  and  of  futility. 

Myrtle  Cass  appeared,  with  Cy  Bogart.  She  giggled  and 
bounced  when  Cy  tickled  her  ear  in  village  love.  They  strolled 
with  the  half-dancing  gait  of  lovers,  kicking  their  feet  out  side 
ways  or  shuffling  a  dragging  jig,  and  the  concrete  walk  sounded 
to  the  broken  two-four  rhythm.  Their  voices  had  a  dusky 
turbulence.  Suddenly,  to  the  woman  rocking  on  the  porch  of 
the  doctor's  house,  the  night  came  alive,  and  she  felt  that 
everywhere  in  the  darkness  panted  an  ardent  quest  which  she 

was  missing  as  she  sank  back  to  wait  for There  must  be 

something. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 


IT  WAS  at  a  supper  of  the  Jolly  Seventeen  in  August  that 
Carol  heard  of  "Elizabeth,"  from  Mrs.  Dave  Dyer. 

Carol  was  fond  of  Maud  Dyer,  because  she  had  been  particu 
larly  agreeable  lately;  had  obviously  repented  of  the  nervous 
distaste  which  she  had  once  shown.  Maud  patted  her  hand 
when  they  met,  and  asked  about  Hugh. 

Kennicott  said  that  he  was  "kind  of  sorry  for  the  girl, 
some  ways;  she's  too  darn  emotional,  but  still,  Dave  is  sort 
of  mean  to  her."  He  was  polite  to  poor  Maud  when  they 
all  went  down  to  the  cottages  for  a  swim.  Carol  was  proud  of 
that  sympathy  in  him,  and  now  she  took  pains  to  sit  with  their 
new  friend. 

Mrs.  Dyer  was  bubbling,  "  Oh,  have  you  folks  heard  about 
this  young  fellow  that's  just  come  to  town  that  the  boys  call 
'  Elizabeth  '?  He's  working  in  Nat  Hicks's  tailor  shop.  I  bet 
he  doesn't  make  eighteen  a  week,  but  my!  isn't  he  the  perfect 
lady  though !  He  talks  so  refined,  and  oh,  the  lugs  he  puts  on 
— belted  coat,  and  pique  collar  with  a  gold  pin,  and  socks 
to  match  his  necktie,  and  honest — you  won't  believe  this,  but 
I  got  it  straight — this  fellow,  you  know  he's  staying  at  Mrs. 
Gurrey's  punk  old  boarding-house,  and  they  say  he  asked  Mrs. 
Gurrey  if  he  ought  to  put  on  a  dress-suit  for  supper!  Imagine! 
Can  you  beat  that?  And  him  nothing  but  a  Swede  tailor — Erik 
Valborg  his  name  is.  But  he  used  to  be  in  a  tailor  shop 
in  Minneapolis  (they  do  say  he's  a  smart  needle-pusher,  at 
that)  and  he  tries  to  let  on  that  he's  a  regular  city  fellow. 
They  say  he  tries  to  make  people  think  he's  a  poet — carries 
books  around  and  pretends  to  read  'em.  Myrtle  Cass  says 
she  met  him  at  a  dance,  and  he  was  mooning  around  all 
over  the  place,  and  he  asked  her  did  she  like  flowers  and 
poetry  and  music  and  everything;  he  spieled  like  he  was  a 
regular  United  States  Senator;  and  Myrtle — she's  a  devil,  that 
girl,  ha!  ha! — she  kidded  him  along,  and  got  him  going,  and 
honest,  what  d'you  think  he  said?  He  said  he  didn't  find  any 

.126 


MAIN   STREET  327 

intellectual  companionship  in  this  town.  Can  you  beat  it? 
Imagine!  And  him  a  Swede  tailor!  My!  And  they  say  he's 
the  most  awful  mollycoddle — looks  just  like  a  girl.  The  boys 
call  him  'Elizabeth/  and  they  stop  him  and  ask  about  the 
books  he  lets  on  to  have  read,  and  he  goes  and  tells  them,  and 
they  take  it  all  in  and  jolly  him  terribly,  and  he  never  gets 
onto  the  fact  they're  kidding  him.  Oh,  I  think  it's  just  too 
funny!  " 

The  Jolly  Seventeen  laughed,  and  Carol  laughed  with  them. 
Mrs.  Jack  Elder  added  that  this  Erik  Valborg  had  confided 
to  Mrs.  Gurrey  that  he  would  "love  to  design  clothes  for 
women."  Imagine!  Mrs.  Harvey  Dillon  had  had  a  glimpse 
of  him,  but  honestly,  she'd  thought  he  was  awfully  hand 
some.  This  was  instantly  controverted  by  Mrs.  B.  J.  Gouger- 
ling,  wife  of  the  banker.  Mrs.  Gougerling  had  had,  she  re 
ported,  a  good  look  at  this  Valborg  fellow.  She  and  B.  J. 
had  been  motoring,  and  passed  "  Elizabeth  "  out  by  McGruder's 
Bridge.  He  was  wearing  the  awfullest  clothes,  with  the  waist 
pinched  in  like  a  girl's.  He  was  sitting  on  a  rock  doing 
nothing,  but  when  he  heard  the  Gougerling  car  coming  he 
snatched  a  book  out  of  his  pocket,  and  as  they  went  by  he 
pretended  to  be  reading  it,  to  show  off.  And  he  wasn't  really 
good-looking — just  kind  of  soft,  as  B.  J.  had  pointed  out. 

When  the  husbands  came  they  joined  in  the  expose.  "  My 
name  is  Elizabeth.  I'm  the  celebrated  musical  tailor.  The 
skirts  fall  for  me  by  the  thou.  Do  I  get  some  more  veal 
loaf?  "  merrily  shrieked  Dave  Dyer.  He  had  some  admirable 
stories  about  the  tricks  the  town  youngsters  had  played  on 
Valborg.  They  had  dropped  a  decaying  perch  into  his  pocket. 
They  had  pinned  on  his  back  a  sign,  "  I'm  the  prize  boob, 
kick  me." 

Glad  of  any  laughter,  Carol  joined  the  frolic,  and  surprised 
them  by  crying,  "  Dave,  I  do  think  you're  the  dearest  thing 
since  you  got  your  hair  cut!  "  That  was  an  excellent  sally. 
Everybody  applauded.  Kennicott  looked  proud. 

She  decided  that  sometime  she  really  must  go  out  of  her 
way  to  pass  Hicks's  shop  and  see  this  freak. 

n 

She  was  at  Sunday  morning  service  at  the  Baptist  Church, 
in  a  solemn  row  with  her  husband,  Hugh,  Uncle  Whittier, 
Aunt  Bessie. 


328  MAIN   STREET 

Despite  Aunt  Bessie's  nagging  the  Kennicotts  rarely  at 
tended  church.  The  doctor  asserted,  "  Sure,  religion  is  a  fine 
influence — got  to  have  it  to  keep  the  lower  classes  in  order — 
fact,  it's  the  only  thing  that  appeals  to  a  lot  of  those  fellows 
and  makes  'em  respect  the  rights  of  property.  And  I  guess  this 
theology  is  O.K.;  lot  of  wise  old  coots  figured  it  all  out,  and 
they  knew  more  about  it  than  we  do."  He  believed  in  the 
Christian  religion,  and  never  thought  about  it;  he  believed 
in  the  church,  and  seldom  went  near  it;  he  was  shocked  by 
Carol's  lack  of,  faith,  and  wasn't  quite  sure  what  was  the 
nature  of  the  faith  that  she  lacked. 

Carol  herself  was  an  uneasy  and  dodging  agnostic. 

When  she  ventured  to  Sunday  School  and  heard  the  teachers 
droning  that  the  genealogy  of  Shamsherai  was  a  valuable 
ethical  problem  for  children  to  think  about;  when  she  ex 
perimented  with  Wednesday  prayer-meeting  and  listened  to 
store-keeping  elders  giving  their  unvarying  weekly  testimony 
in  primitive  erotic  symbols  and  such  gory  Chaldean  phrases 
as  "  washed  in  the  blood  of  the  lamb  "  and  "  a  vengeful  God  "; 
when  Mrs.  Bogart  boasted  that  through  his  boyhood  she  had 
made  Cy  confess  nightly  upon  the  basis  of  the  Ten  Com 
mandments;  then  Carol  was  dismayed  to  find  the  Christian 
religion,  in  America,  in  the  twentieth  century,  as  abnormal  as 
Zoroastrianism — without  the  splendor.  But  when  she  went 
to  church  suppers  and  felt  the  friendliness,  saw  the  gaiety  with 
which  the  sisters  served  cold  ham  and  scalloped  potatoes; 
when  Mrs.  Champ  Perry  cried  to  her,  on  an  afternoon  call, 
"  My  dear,  if  you  just  knew  how  happy  it  makes  you  to  come 
into  abiding  grace,"  then  Carol  found  the  humanness  behind 
the  sanguinary  and  alien  theology.  Always  she  perceived  that 
the  churches — Methodist,  Baptist,  Congregational,  Catholic, 
all  of  them — which  had  seemed  so  unimportant  to  the  judge's 
home  in  her  childhood,  so  isolated  from  the  city  struggle  in 
St.  Paul,  were  still,  in  Gopher  Prairie,  the  strongest  of  the 
forces  compelling  respectability. 

This  August  Sunday  she  had  been  tempted  by  the  announce 
ment  that  the  Reverend  Edmund  Zitterel  would  preach  on  the 
topic  "America,  Face  Your  Problems!  "  With  the  great  war, 
workmen  in  every  nation  showing  a  desire  to  control  indus 
tries,  Russia  hinting  a  leftward  revolution  against  Kerensky, 
woman  suffrage  coming,  there  seemed  to  be  plenty  of  problems 
for  the  Reverend  Mr.  Zitterel  to  call  on  America  to  face. 


MAIN   STREET  329 

Carol  gathered  her  family  and  trotted  off  behind  Uncle 
Whittier. 

The  congregation  faced  the  heat  with  informality.  Men 
with  highly  plastered  hair,  so  painfully  shaved  that  their  faces 
looked  sore,  removed  their  coats,  sighed,  and  unbuttoned  two 
buttons  of  their  uncreased  Sunday  vests.  Large-bosomed, 
white-bloused,  hot-necked,  spectacled  matrons — the  Mothers 
in  Israel,  pioneers  and  friends  of  Mrs.  Champ  Perry — waved 
their  palm-leaf  fans  in  a  steady  rhythm.  Abashed  boys  slunk 
into  the  rear  pews  and  giggled,  while  milky  little  girls,  up  front 
with  their  mothers,  self-consciously  kept  from  turning  around. 

The  church  was  half  barn  and  half  Gopher  Prairie  parlor. 
The  streaky  brown  wallpaper  was  broken  in  its  dismal  sweep 
only  by  framed  texts,  "  Come  unto  Me  "  and  "  The  Lord  is 
My  Shepherd,"  by  a  list  of  hymns,  and  by  a  crimson  and 
green  diagram,  staggeringly  drawn  upon  hemp-colored  paper, 
indicating  the  alarming  ease  with  which  a  young  man  may 
descend  from  Palaces  of  Pleasure  and  the  House  of  Pride  to 
Eternal  Damnation.  But  the  varnished  oak  pews  and  the  new 
red  carpet  and  the  three  large  chairs  on  the  platform,  behind 
the  bare  reading-stand,  were  all  of  a  rocking-chair  comfort. 

Carol  was  civic  and  neighborly  and  commendable  today. 
She  beamed  and  bowed.  She  trolled  out  with  the  others  the 
hymn: 

How  pleasant  'tis  on  Sabbath  morn 
To  gather  in  the  church, 
And  there  I'll  have  no  carnal  thoughts, 
Nor  sin  shall  me  besmirch. 

With  a  rustle  of  starched  linen  skirts  and  stiff  shirt-fronts, 
the  congregation  sat  down,  and  gave  heed  to  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Zitterel.  The  priest  was  a  thin,  swart,  intense  young 
man  with  a  bang.  He  wore  a  black  sack  suit  and  a  lilac  tie. 
He  smote  the  enormous  Bible  on  the  reading-stand,  vociferated, 
"  Come,  let  us  reason  together,"  delivered  a  prayer  informing 
Almighty  God  of  the  news  of  the  past  week,  and  began  to 
reason. 

It  proved  that  the  only  problems  which  America  had  to 
face  were  Mormonism  and  Prohibition: 

"  Don't  let  any  of  these  self-conceited  fellows  that  are 
always  trying  to  stir  up  trouble  deceive  you  with  the  belief 
that  there's  anything  to  all  these  smart-aleck  movements  to 


330  MAIN   STREET 

let  the  unions  and  the  Farmers'  Nonpartisan  League  kill  all 
our  initiative  and  enterprise  by  fixing  wages  and  prices.  There 
isn't  any  movement  that  amounts  to  a  whoop  without  it's  got 
a  moral  background.  And  let  me  tell  you  that  while  folks 
are  fussing  about  what  they  call  '  economics '  and  '  socialism ' 
and  '  science '  and  a  lot  of  things  that  are  nothing  in  the  world 
but  a  disguise  for  atheism,  the  Old  Satan  is  busy  spreading 
his  secret  net  and  tentacles  out  there  in  Utah,  under  his  guise 
of  Joe  Smith  or  Brigham  Young  or  whoever  their  leaders 
happen  to  be  today,  it  doesn't  make  any  difference,  and  they'ref 
making  game  of  the  Old  Bible  that  has  led  this  American 
people  through  its  manifold  trials  and  tribulations  to  its  firm 
position  as  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecies  and  the  recognized 
leader  of  all  nations.  '  Sit  thou  on  my  right  hand  till  I  make 
thine  enemies  the  footstool  of  my  feet,'  said  the  Lord  of  Hosts, 
Acts  II,  the  thirty-fourth  verse — and  let  me  tell  you  right  now, 
you  got  to  get  up  a  good  deal  earlier  in  the  morning  than  you 
get  up  even  when  you're  going  fishing,  if  you  want  to  be 
smarter  than  the  Lord,  who  has  shown  us  the  straight  and  nar 
row  way,  and  he  that  passeth  therefrom  is  in  eternal  peril  and, 
to  return  to  this  vital  and  terrible  subject  of  Mormonism — and 
as  I  say,  it  is  terrible  to  realize  how  little  attention  is  given 
to  this  evil  right  here  in  our  midst  and  on  our  very  doorstep, 
as  it  were — it's  a  shame  and  a  disgrace  that  the  Congress  oL 
these  United  States  spends  all  its  time  talking  about  incon 
sequential  financial  matters  that  ought  to  be  left  to  the  Treasury 
Department,  as  I  understand  it,  instead  of  arising  in  their 
might  and  passing  a  law  that  any  one  admitting  he  is  a  Mormon 
shall  simply  be  deported  and  as  it  were  kicked  out  of  this 
free  country  in  which  we  haven't  got  any  room  for  polygamy 
and  the  tyrannies  of  Satan. 

"  And,  to  digress  for  a  moment,  especially  as  there  are  more 
of  them  in  this  state  than  there  are  Mormons,  though  you 
never  can  tell  what  will  happen  with  this  vain  generation  of 
young  girls,  that  think  more  about  wearing  silk  stockings  than 
about  minding  their  mothers  and  learning  to  bake  a  good  loaf 
of  bread,  and  many  of  them  listening  to  these  sneaking  Mormon 
missionaries — and  I  actually  heard  one  of  them  talking  right 
out  on  a  street-corner  in  Duluth,  a  few  years  ago,  and  the 
officers  of  the  law  not  protesting — but  still,  as  they  are  a  smaller 
but  more  immediate  problem,  let  me  stop  for  just  a  moment 
to  pay  my  respects  to  these  Seventh-Day  Adventists.  Not  that 


MAIN    STREET  331 

they  are  immoral,  I  don't  mean,  but  when  a  body  of  men 
go  on  insisting  that  Saturday  is  the  Sabbath,  after  Christ  him 
self  has  clearly  indicated  the  new  dispensation,  then  I  think 
the  legislature  ought  to  step  in " 

At  this  point  Carol  awoke. 

She  got  through  three  more  minutes  by  studying  the  face 
of  a  girl  in  the  pew  across:  a  sensitive  unhappy  girl  whose 
longing  poured  out  with  intimidating  self-revelation  as  she  wor 
shiped  Mr.  Zitterel.  Carol  wondered  who  the  girl  was.  She 
bad  seen  her  at  church  suppers.  She  considered  how  many 
of  the  three  thousand  people  in  the  town  she  did  not  know; 
to  how  many  of  them  the  Thanatopsis  and  the  Jolly  Seventeen 
were  icy  social  peaks;  how  many  of  them  might  be  toiling 
through  boredom  thicker  than  her  own — with  greater  courage. 

She  examined  her  nails.  She  read  two  hymns.  She  got  some 
satisfaction  out  of  rubbing  an  itching  knuckle.  She  pillowed 
on  her  shoulder  the  head  of  the  baby  who,  after  killing  time 
in  the  same  manner  as  his  mother,  was  so  fortunate  as  to 
fall  asleep.  She  read  the  introduction,  title-page,  and  acknowl 
edgment  of  copyrights,  in  the  hymnal.  She  tried  to  evolve 
a  philosophy  which  would  explain  why  Kennicott  could  never 
tie  his  scarf  so  that  it  would  reach  the  top  of  the  gap  in  his 
turn-down  collar. 

There  were  no  other  diversions  to  be  found  in  the  pew. 
She  glanced  back  at  the  congregation.  She  thought  that  it 
would  l)e  amiable  to  bow  to  Mrs.  Champ  Perry. 

Her  slow  turning  head  stopped,  galvanized. 

Across  the  aisle,  two  rows  back,  was  a  strange  young  man 
who  shone  among  the  cud-chewing  citizens  like  a  visitant  from 
the  sun — amber  curls,  low  forehead,  fine  nose,  chin  smooth 
but  not  raw  from  Sabbath  shaving.  His  lips  startled  her.  The 
lips  of  men  in  Gopher  Prairie  are  flat  in  the  face,  straight  and 
grudging.  The  stranger's  mouth  was  arched,  the  upper  lip 
short.  He  wore  a  brown  jersey  coat,  a  delft-blue  bow,  a  white 
silk  shirt,  white  flannel  trousers.  He  suggested  the  ocean 
beach,  a  tennis  court,  anything  but  the  sun-blistered  utility 
of  Main  Street. 

A  visitor  from  Minneapolis,  here  for  business?  No.  He 
wasn't  a  business  man.  He  was  a  poet.  Keats  was  in  his  face, 
and  Shelley,  and  Arthur  Upson,  whom  she  had  once  seen  in 
Minneapolis.  He  was  at  once  too  sensitive  and  too  sophis 
ticated  to  touch  business  as  she  knew  it  in  Gopher  Prairie, 


332  MAIN    STREET 

With  restrained  amusement  he  was  analyzing  the  noisy  Mr. 
Zitterel.  Carol  was  ashamed  to  have  this  spy  from  the  Great 
World  hear  the  pastor's  maundering.  She  felt  responsible  for 
the  town.  She  resented  his  gaping  at  their  private  rites. 
She  flushed,  turned  away.  But  she  continued  to  feel  his 
presence. 

How  could  she  meet  him?  She  must!  For  an  hour  of  talk. 
He  was  all  that  she  was  hungry  for.  She  could  not  let 
him  get  away  without  a  word — and  she  would  have  to.  She 
pictured,  and  ridiculed,  herself  as  walking  up  to  him  and 
remarking,  "  I  am  sick  with  the  Village  Virus.  Will  you  please 
tell  me  what  people  are  saying  and  playing  in  New  York?  " 
She  pictured,  and  groaned  over,  the  expression  of  Kennicott 
if  she  should  say,  "  Why  wouldn't  it  be  reasonable  for  you,  my 
soul,  to  ask  that  complete  stranger  in  the  brown  jersey  coat  to 
come  to  supper  tonight?  " 

She  brooded,  not  looking  back.  She  warned  herself  that 
she  was  probably  exaggerating ;  that  no  young  man  could  have 
all  these  exalted  qualities.  Wasn't  he  too  obviously  smart, 
too  glossy-new?  Like  a  movie  actor.  Probably  he  was  a 
traveling  salesman  who  sang  tenor  and  fancied  himself  in 
imitations  of  Newport  clothes  and  spoke  of  "  the  swellest 
business  proposition  that  ever  came  down  the  pike."  In  a 
panic  she  peered  at  him.  No!  This  was  no  hustling  salesman, 
this  boy  with  the  curving  Grecian  lips  and  the  serious  eyes. 

She  rose  after  the  service,  carefully  taking  Kennicott's  arm 
and  smiling  at  him  in  a  mute  assertion  that  she  was  devoted 
to  him  no  matter  what  happened.  She  followed  the  Mystery's 
soft  brown  jersey  shoulders  out  of  the  church. 

Fatty  Hicks,  the  shrill  and  puffy  son  of  Nat,  flapped  his 
hand  at  the  beautiful  stranger  and  jeered,  "  How's  the  kid? 
All  dolled  up  like  a  plush  horse  today,  ain't  we!  " 

Carol  was  exceeding  sick.  Her  herald  from  the  outside 
was  Erik  Valborg,  "Elizabeth."  Apprentice  tailor!  Gasoline 
and  hot  goose!  Mending  dirty  jackets!  Respectfully  holding 
a  tape-measure  about  a  paunch! 

And  yet,  she  insisted,  this  boy  was  also  himself. 


m 

They  had  Sunday  dinner  with  the  Smails,  in  a  dining-room 
which  centered  about  a  fruit  and  flower  piece  and  a  crayon- 


MAIN   STREET  333 

enlargement  of  Uncle  Whittier.  Carol  did  not  heed  Aunt 
Bessie's  fussing  in  regard  to  Mrs.  Robert  B.  Schminke's  bead 
necklace  and  Whittier 's  error  in  putting  on  the  striped  pants, 
day  like  this.  She  did  not  taste  the  shreds  of  roast  pork.  She 
said  vacuously: 

"  Uh — Will,  I  wonder  if  that  young  man  in  the  white  flannel 
trousers,  at  church  this  morning,  was  this  Valborg  person  that 
they're  all  talking  about?  " 

"  Yump.  That's  him.  Wasn't  that  the  darndest  get-up  he 
had  on!  "  Kennicott  scratched  at  a  white  smear  on  his  hard 
gray  sleeve. 

"  It  wasn't  so  bad.  I  wonder  where  he  comes  from?  He 
seems  to  have  lived  in  cities  a  good  deal.  Is  he  from  the 
East?  " 

"  The  East?  Him?  Why,  he  comes  from  a  farm  right  up 
north  here,  just  this  side  of  Jefferson.  I  know  his  father 
slightly — Adolph  Valborg — typical  cranky  old  Swede  farmer." 

"  Oh,  really?  "  blandly. 

"  Believe  he  has  lived  in  Minneapolis  for  quite  some  time, 
though.  Learned  his  trade  there.  And  I  will  say  he's  bright, 
some  ways.  Reads  a  lot.  Pollock  says  he  takes  more  books 
out  of  the  library  ^ than  anybody  else  in  town.  Huh!  He's 
kind  of  like  you  in  that!  " 

The  S mails  and  Kennicott  laughed  very  much  at  this  sly 
jest.  Uncle  Whittier  seized  the  conversation.  "  That  fellow 
that's  working  for  Hicks?  Milksop,  that's  what  he  is.  Makes 
me  tired  to  see  a  young  fellow  that  ought  to  be  in  the  war, 
or  anyway  out  in  the  fields  earning  his  living  honest,  like 
I  done  when  I  was  young,  doing  a  woman's  work  and  then 
come  out  and  dress  up  like  a  show-actor!  Why,  when  I  was 
his  age " 

Carol  reflected  that  the  carving-knife  would  make  an 
excellent  dagger  with  which  to  kill  Uncle  Whittier.  It  would 
slide  in  easily.  The  headlines  would  be  terrible. 

Kennicott  said  judiciously,  "  Oh,  I  don't  want  to  be  unjust 
to  him.  I  believe  he  took  his  physical  examination  for  military 
service.  Got  varicose  veins — not  bad,  but  enough  to  disqualify 
iiim.  Though  I  will  say  he  doesn't  look  like  a  fellow  that 
would  be  so  awful  darn  crazy  to  poke  his  bayonet  into  a 
Hun's  guts." 

"Will!     Please!" 

"  Well,  he  don't.    Looks  soft  to  me.    And  they  say  he  told 


334  MAIN   STREET 

Del  Snafflin,  when  he  was  getting  a  hair-cut  on  Saturday,  thai 
be  wished  he  could  play  the  piano." 

"  Isn't  it  wonderful  how  much  we  all  know  about  one  another 
in  a  town  like  this,"  said  Carol  innocently. 

Kennicott  was  suspicious,  but  Aunt  Bessie,  serving  the  float 
ing  island  pudding,  agreed,  "  Yes,  it  is  wonderful.  Folks  can 
get  away  with  all  sorts  of  meannesses  and  sins  in  these  ter 
rible  cities,  but  they  can't  here.  I  was  noticing  this  tailor 
fellow  this  morning,  and  when  Mrs.  Riggs  offered  to  share  her 
hymn-book  with  him,  he  shook  his  head,  and  all  the  while  we 
was  singing  he  just  stood  there  like  a  bump  on  a  log  and  never 
opened  his  mouth.  Everybody  says  he's  got  an  idea  that 
he's  got  so  much  better  manners  and  all  than  what  the  rest 
of  us  have,  but  if  that's  what  he  calls  good  manners,  I  want  to 
know!  " 

Carol  again  studied  the  carving-knife.  Blood  on  the  white 
cess  of  a  tablecloth  might  be  gorgeous. 

Then: 

"Fool!  Neurotic  impossibilist !  Telling  yourself  orchard 
fairy-tales — at  thirty.  .  .  .  Dear  Lord,  am  I  really  thirty? 
That  boy  can't  be  more  than  twenty-five." 


IV 

She  went  calling. 

Boarding  with  the  Widow  Bogart  was  Fern  Mullins,  a  girl 
df  twenty-two  who  was  to  be  teacher  of  English,  French,  and 
gymnastics  in  the  high  school  this  coming  session.  Fern 
Mullins  had  come  to  town  early,  for  the  six-weeks  normal 
course  for  country  teachers.  Carol  had  noticed  her  on  the 
street,  had  heard  almost  as  much  about  her  as  about  Erik 
Valborg.  She  was  tall,  weedy,  pretty,  and  incurably  rakish. 
Whether  she  wore  a  low  middy  collar  or  dressed  reticently 
for  school  in  a  black  suit  with  a  high-necked  blouse,  she  was 
airy,  flippant.  "  She  looks  like  an  absolute  totty,"  said  all 
the  Mrs.  Sam  darks,  disapprovingly,  and  all  the  Juanita  Hay- 
docks,  enviously. 

That  Sunday  evening,  sitting  in  baggy  canvas  lawn-chairs 
beside  the  house,  the  Kennicotts  saw  Fern  laughing  with  Cy 
Bogart  who,  though  still  a  junior  in  high  school,  was  now 
a  lump  of  a  man,  only  two  or  three  years  younger  than  Fern. 
Cy  had  to  go  downtown  for  weighty  matters  connected  with  the 


MAIN    STREET  335 

pool-parlor.  Fern  drooped  on  the  Bogart  porch,  her  chin  in 
her  hands. 

"  She  looks  lonely,"  said  Kennicott. 

"  She  does,  poor  soul.  I  believe  I'll  go  over  and  speak  to 
her.  I  was  introduced  to  her  at  Dave's  but  I  haven't  called." 
Carol  was  slipping  across  the  lawn,  a  white  figure  in  the  dim 
ness,  faintly  brushing  the  dewy  grass.  She  was  thinking  of 
Erik  and  of  the  fact  that  her  feet  were  wet,  and  she  was  casual 
in  her  greeting:  "Hello!  The  doctor  and  I  wondered  if  you 
were  lonely." 

Resentfully,  "  I  am!  " 

Carol  concentrated  on  her.  "  My  dear,  you  sound  so!  I 
know  how  it  is.  I  used  to  be  tired  when  I  was  on  the  job — 
I  was  a  librarian.  What  was  your  college?  I  was  Blodgett." 

More  interestedly,  "  I  went  to  the  U."  Fern  meant  the 
University  of  Minnesota. 

"  You  must  have  had  a  splendid  time.  Blodgett  was  a  bit 
dull." 

"  Where  were  you  a  librarian?  "  challengingly. 

"  St.  PauJ,— the  main  library." 

"  Honest?  Oh  dear,  I  wish  I  was  back  in  the  Cities!  This 
is  my  first  year  of  teaching,  and  I'm  scared  stiff.  I  did  have 
the  best  time  in  college:  dramatics  and  basket-ball  and  fussing 
and  dancing — I'm  simply  crazy  about  dancing.  And  here, 
except  when  I  have  the  kids  in  gymnasium  class,  or  when  I'm 
chaperoning  the  basket-ball  team  on  a  trip  out-of-town,  I  won't 
dare  to  move  above  a  whisper.  I  guess  they  don't  care  much 
if  you  put  any  pep  into  teaching  or  not,  as  long  as  you  look 
like  a  Good  Influence  out  of  school-hours — and  that  means 
never  doing  anything  you  want  to.  This  normal  course  is 
bad  enough,  but  the  regular  school  will  be  fierce!  If  it  wasn't 
too  late  to  get  a  job  in  the  Cities,  I  swear  I'd  resign  here. 
I  bet  I  won't  dare  to  go  to  a  single  dance  all  winter.  If  I  cut 
loose  and  danced  the  way  I  like  to,  they'd  think  I  was  a 
perfect  hellion — poor  harmless  me!  Oh,  I  oughtn't  to  be 
talking  like  this.  Fern,  you  never  could  be  cagey!  " 

"Don't  be  frightened,  my  dear!  .  .  .  Doesn't  that 
sound  atrociously  old  and  kind!  I'm  talking  to  you  the  way 
Mrs.  Westlake  talks  to  me!  That's  having  a  husband  and  a 
kitchen  range,  I  suppose.  But  I  feel  young,  and  I  want  to 
dance  like  a — like  a  hellion? — too.  So  I  sympathize." 

Fern  made  a  sound  of  gratitude.    Carol  inquired,  "What 


336  MAIN    STREET 

experience  did  you  have  with  college  dramatics?  I  tried  to 
start  a  kind  of  Little  Theater  here.  It  was  dreadful.  I  must 
tell  you  about  it " 

Two  hours  later,  when  Kennicott  came  over  to  greet  Fern 
and  to  yawn,  "  Look  here,  Carrie,  don't  you  suppose  you  better 
be  thinking  about  turning  in?  I've  got  a  hard  day  tomorrow," 
the  two  were  talking  so  intimately  that  they  constantly  inter 
rupted  each  other. 

As  she  went  respectably  home,  convoyed  by  a  husband,  and 
decorously  holding  up  her  skirts,  Carol  rejoiced,  "  Everything 

has  changed!  I  have  two  friends,  Fern  and But  who's 

the  other?  That's  queer;  I  thought  there  was Oh,  how 

absurd!  " 


She  often  passed  Erik  Valborg  on  the  street;  the  brown 
jersey  coat  became  unremarkable.  When  she  was  driving  with 
Kennicott,  in  early  evening,  she  saw  him  on  the  lake  shore, 
reading  a  thin  book  which  might  easily  have  been  poetry.  She 
noted  that  he  was  the  only  person  in  the  motorized  town  who 
still  took  long  walks. 

She  told  herself  that  she  was  the  daughter  of  a  judge,  the 
wife  of  a  doctor,  and  that  she  did  not  care  to  know  a  capering 
tailor.  She  told  herself  that  she  was  not  responsive  to  men 
.  not  even  to  Percy  Bresnahan.  She  told  herself 
that  a  woman  of  thirty  who  heeded  a  boy  of  twenty-five  was 
ridiculous.  And  on  Friday,  when  she  had  convinced  herself 
that  the  errand  was  necessary,  she  went  to  Nat  Hicks's  shop, 
bearing  the  not  very  romantic  burden  of  a  pair  of  her  husband's 
trousers.  Hicks  was  in  the  back  room.  She  faced  the  Greek 
god  who,  in  a  somewhat  ungodlike  way,  was  stitching  a  coat 
on  a  scaley  sewing-machine,  in  a  room  of  smutted  plaster  walls. 

She  saw  that  his  hands  were  not  in  keeping  with  a  Hellenic 
face.  They  were  thick,  roughened  with  needle  and  hot  iron 
and  plow-handle.  Even  in  the  shop  he  persisted  in  his  finery. 
He  wore  a  silk  shirt,  a  topaz  scarf,  thin  tan  shoes. 

This  she  absorbed  while  she  was  saying  curtly,  "  Can  I 
get  these  pressed,  please?  " 

Not  rising  from  the  sewing-machine  he  stuck  out  his  hand, 
mumbled,  "  When  do  you  want  them?  " 

"  Oh,  Monday." 


MAIN   STREET  337 

The  adventure  was  over.    She  was  marching  out. 

"  What  name?  "  he  called  after  her. 

He  had  risen  and,  despite  the  farcicality  of  Dr.  Will  Kenni- 
cott's  bulgy  trousers  draped  over  his  arm,  he  had  the  grace 
of  a  cat. 

"  Kennicott." 

"Kennicott.  Oh!  Oh  say,  you're  Mrs.  Dr.  Kennicott  then, 
aren't  you?  " 

"  Yes."  She  stood  at  the  door.  Now  that  she  had  carried 
out  her  preposterous  impulse  to  see  what  he  was  like,  she  was 
cold,  she  was  as  ready  to  detect  familiarities  as  the  virtuous 
Miss  Ella  Stowbody. 

"  I've  heard  about  you.  Myrtle  Cass  was  saying  you  got 
up  a  dramatic  club  and  gave  a  dandy  play.  I've  always  wished 
I  had  a  chance  to  belong  to  a  Little  Theater,  and  give  some 
European  plays,  or  whimsical  like  Barrie,  or  a  pageant." 

He  pronounced  it  "  pagent  ";  he  rhymed  "  pag  "  with  "  rag." 

Carol  nodded  in  the  manner  of  a  lady  being  kind  to  a  trades 
man,  and  one  of  her  selves  sneered,  "  Our  Erik  is  indeed  a  lost 
John  Keats." 

He  was  appealing,  "  Do  you  suppose  it  would  be  possible 
to  get  up  another  dramatic  club  this  coming  fall?  " 

"  Well,  it  might  be  worth  thinking  of."  She  came  out  of 
her  several  conflicting  poses,  and  said  sincerely,  "  There's  a  new 
teacher,  Miss  Mullins,  who  might  have  some  talent.  That 
would  make  three  of  us  for  a  nucleus.  If  we  could  scrape  up 
half  a  dozen  we  might  give  a  real  play  with  a  small  cast.  Have 
you  had  any  experience?  " 

"  Just  a  bum  club  that  some  of  us  got  up  in  Minneapolis 
when  I  was  working  there.  We  had  one  good  man,  an  interior 
decorator — maybe  he  was  kind  of  sis  and  effeminate,  but  he 

really  was  an  artist,  and  we  gave  one  dandy  play.  But  I • 

Of  course  I've  always  had  to  work  hard,  and  study  by  myself, 
and  I'm  probably  sloppy,  and  I'd  love  it  if  I  had  training  in 
rehearsing — I  mean,  the  crankier  the  director  was,  the  better 
I'd  like  it.  If  you  didn't  want  to  use  me  as  an  actor,  I'd  love 
to  design  the  costumes.  I'm  crazy  about  fabrics — textures 
and  colors  and  designs." 

She  knew  that  he  was  trying  to  keep  her  from  going,  trying 
to  indicate  that  he  was  something  more  than  a  person  to  whom 
one  brought  trousers  for  pressing.  He  besought: 

"  Some  day  I  hope  I  can  get  away  from  this  fool  repairing, 


t 
338  MAIN   STREET 

when  I  have  the  money  saved  up.  I  want  to  go  East  and  work 
for  some  big  dressmaker,  and  study  art  drawing,  and  become 
a  high-class  designer.  Or  do  you  think  that's  a  kind  of  ftddlin* 
ambition  for  a  fellow?  I  was  brought  up  on  a  farm.  And  then 
monkeyin'  round  with  silks!  I  don't  know.  What  do  you 
think?  Myrtle  Cass  says  you're  awfully  educated." 

"  I  am.  Awfully.  Tell  me:  Have  the  boys  made  fun  of 
your  ambition?  " 

She  was  seventy  years  old,  and  sexless,  and  more  advisory 
than  Vida  Sherwin. 

"  Well,  they  have,  at  that.  They've  jollied  me  a  good  deal, 
here  and  Minneapolis  both.  They  say  dressmaking  is  ladies' 
work.  (But  I  was  willing  to  get  drafted  for  the  war!  I  tried 
to  get  in.  But  they  rejected  me.  But  I  did  try!)  I  thought 
some  of  working  up  in  a  gents'  furnishings  store,  and  I  had 
a  chance  to  travel  on  the  road  for  u  clothing  house,  but  some 
how — I  hate  this  tailoring,  but  I  can't  seem  to  get  enthusiastic 
about  salesmanship.  I  keep  thinking  about  a  room  in  gray 
oatmeal  paper  with  prints  in  very  narrow  gold  frames — or 
would  it  be  better  in  white  enamel  paneling? — but  anyway,  it 

looks  out  on  Fifth  Avenue,  and  I'm  designing  a  sumptuous n 

He  made  it  "  sump-too-ous  " — "  robe  of  linden  green  chiffon 
over  cloth  of  gold!  You  know — tileul.  It's  elegant.  .  .  . 
What  do  you  think?  " 

"  Why  not?  What  do  you  care  for  the  opinion  of  city 
rowdies,  or  a  lot  of  farm  boys?  But  you  mustn't,  you  really 
mustn't,  let  casual  strangers  like  me  have  a  chance  to  judge 
you." 

"  Well You  aren't  a  stranger,  one  way.  Myrtle  Cass 

— Miss  Cass,  should  say — she's  spoken  about  you  so  often.  I 
wanted  to  call  on  you — and  the  doctor — but  I  didn't  quite 
have  the  nerve.  One  evening  I  walked  past  your  house,  but 
you  and  your  husband  were  talking  on  the  porch,  and  you 
looked  so  chummy  and  happy  I  didn't  dare  butt  in." 

Maternally,  "  I  think  it's  extremely  nice  of  you  to  want 
to  be  trained  in — in  enunciation  by  a  stage-director.  Perhaps 
I  could  help  you.  I'm  a  thoroughly  sound  and  uninspired 
schoolma'am  by  instinct;  quite  hopelessly  mature." 

"  Oh,  you  aren't  either! " 

She  was  not  very  successful  at  accepting  his  fervor  with  the 
air  of  amused  woman  of  the  world,  but  she  sounded  reasonably 
Impersonal:  "  Thank  you.  Shall  we  see  if  we  really  can  get 


MAIN   STREET  339 

up  a  new  dramatic  club?  I'll  tell  you:  Come  to  the  house  this 
evening,  about  eight.  I'll  ask  Miss  Mullins  to  come  over,  and 
we'll  talk  about  it." 


VI 

"  He  has  absolutely  no  sense  of  humor.  Less  than  Will.  But 

hasn't  he What  is  a  '  sense  of  humor  '  ?  Isn't  the  thing 

he  lacks  the  back-slapping  jocosity  that  passes  for  humor  here? 

Anyway Poor  lamb,  coaxing  me  to  stay  and  play  with 

him!  Poor  lonely  lamb!  If  he  could  be  free  from  Nat  Hickses, 
from  people  who  say  '  dandy  '  and  l  bum/  would  he  develop? 

"  I  wonder  if  Whitman  didn't  use  Brooklyn  back-street  slang, 
as  a  boy? 

"No.  Not  Whitman.  He's  Keats — sensitive  to  silken 
things.  '  Innumerable  of  stains  and  splendid  dyes  as  are  the 
tiger-moth's  deep-damask'd  wings/  Keats,  here!  A  bewildered 
spirit  fallen  on  Main  Street.  And  Main  Street  laughs  till  it 
aches,  giggles  till  the  spirit  doubts  his  own  self  and  tries  to  give 
up  the  use  of  wings  for  the  correct  uses  of  a  '  gents'  furnishings 
store/  Gopher  Prairie  with  its  celebrated  eleven  miles  of 
cement  walk.  ...  I  wonder  how  much  of  the  cement 
is  made  out  of  the  tombstones  of  John  Keatses?  " 


vn 

Kennicott  was  cordial  to  Fern  Mullins,  teased  her,  told  her 
he  was  a  "  great  hand  for  running  off  with  pretty  school 
teachers,"  and  promised  that  if  the  school-board  should  object 
to  her  dancing,  he  would  "  bat  'em  one  over  the  head  and  tell 
'em  how  lucky  they  were  to  get  a  girl  with  some  go  to  her,  for 
once." 

But  to  Erik  Valborg  he  was  not  cordial.  He  shook  hands 
loosely,  and  said,  "  H'  are  yuh." 

Nat  Hicks  was  socially  acceptable;  he  had  been  here  for 
years,  and  owned  his  shop;  but  this  person  was  merely  Nat's 
workman,  and  the  town's  principle  of  perfect  democracy  was 
not  meant  to  be  applied  indiscriminately. 

The  conference  on  a  dramatic  club  theoretically  included 
Kennicott,  but  he  sat  back,  patting  yawns,  conscious  of  Fern's 
ankles,  smiling  amiably  on  the  children  at  their  sport. 

Fern  wanted  to  tell  her  grievances;  Carol  was  sulky  every 


340  MAIN   STREET 

time  she  thought  of  "  The  Girl  from  Kankakee  ";  it  was  Erik 
who  made  suggestions.  He  had  read  with  astounding  breadth, 
and  astounding  lack  of  judgment.  His  voice  was  sensitive  to 
liquids,  but  he  overused  the  word  "  glorious."  He  mispro 
nounced  a  tenth  of  the  words  he  had  from  books,  but  he  knew 
it.  He  was  insistent,  but  he  was  shy. 

When  he  demanded,  "  I'd  like  to  stage  '  Suppressed  Desires,' 
by  Cook  and  Miss  Glaspell,"  Carol  ceased  to  be  patronizing. 
fle  was  not  the  yearner:  he  was  the  artist,  sure  of  his  vision. 
"  I'd  make  it  simple.  Use  a  big  window  at  the  back,  with  a 
cyclorama  of  a  blue  that  would  simply  hit  you  in  the  eye, 
and  just  one  tree-branch,  to  suggest  a  park  below.  Put  the 
breakfast  table  on  a  dais.  Let  the  colors  be  kind  of  arty  and 
tea-roomy — orange  chairs,  and  orange  and  blue  table,  and  blue 
Japanese  breakfast  set,  and  some  place,  one  big  flat  smear  of 
black — bang!  Oh.  Another  play  I  wish  we  could  do  is  Tenny 
son  Jesse's  '  The  Black  Mask.'  I've  never  seen  it  but 

Glorious  ending,  where  this  woman  looks  at  the  man  with  his 
face  all  blown  away,  and  she  just  gives  one  horrible  scream.'** 

"  Good  God,  is  that  your  iotea  of  a  glorious  ending?  "  bayed 
Kennicott. 

"  That  sounds  fierce!  I  do  love  artistic  things,  but  not  the 
horrible  ones,"  moaned  Fern  Mullins. 

Erik  was  bewildered;  glanced  at  Carol.    She  nodded  loyally, 

At  the  end  of  the  conference  they  had  decided  nothing. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 


SHE  had  walked  up  the  railroad  track  with  Hugh,  this  Sunday 
afternoon. 

She  saw  Erik  Valborg  coming,  in  an  ancient  highwater  suit, 
tramping  sullenly  and  alone,  striking  at  the  rails  with  a  stick. 
For  a  second  she  unreasoningly  wanted  to  avoid  him,  but  she 
kept  on,  and  she  serenely  talked  about  God,  whose  voice,  Hugh 
asserted,  made  the  humming  in  the  telegraph  wires.  Erik 
stared,  straightened.  They  greeted  each  other  with  "  Hello." 

"  Hugh,  say  how-do-you-do  to  Mr.  Valborg." 

"  Oh,  dear  me,  he's  got  a  button  unbuttoned,"  worried  Erik, 
kneeling.  Carol  frowned,  then  noted  the  strength  with  which 
he  swung  the  baby  in  the  air. 

"  May  I  walk  along  a  piece  with  you?  " 

"  I'm  tired.  Let's  rest  on  those  ties.  Then  I  must  be  trotting 
back." 

They  sat  on  a  heap  of  discarded  railroad  ties,  oak  logs 
spotted  with  cinnamon-colored  dry-rot  and  marked  with  me 
tallic  brown  streaks  where  iron  plates  had  rested.  Hugh 
learned  that  the  pile  was  the  hiding-place  of  Injuns;  he  went 
gunning  for  them  while  the  elders  talked  of  uninteresting 
things. 

The  telegraph  wires  thrummed,  thrummed,  thrummed  above 
them;  the  rails  were  glaring  hard  lines;  the  goldenrod  smelled 
dusty.  Across  the  track  was  a  pasture  of  dwarf  clover  and 
sparse  lawn  cut  by  earthy  cow-paths;  beyond  its  placid  narrow 
green,  the  rough  immensity  of  new  stubble,  jagged  with  wheat- 
stacks  like  huge  pineapples. 

Erik  talked  of  books;  flamed  like  a  recent  convert  to  any 
faith.  He  exhibited  as  many  titles  and  authors  as  possible, 
halting  only  to  appeal,  "  Have  you  read  his  last  book?  Don't 
you  think  he's  a  terribly  strong  writer?  " 

She  was  dizzy.  But  when  he  insisted,  "You've  been  a 
librarian;  tell  me;  do  I  read  too  much  fiction?  "  she  advised 
him  loftily,  rather  discursively.  He  had,  she  indicated,  never 

34i 


342  MAIN    STREET 

studied.  He  had  skipped  from  one  emotion  to  another.  Es 
pecially — she  hesitated,  then  flung  it  at  him — he  must  not  guess 
at  pronunciations ;  he  must  endure  the  nuisance  of  stopping  to 
reach  for  the  dictionary. 

"  I'm  talking  like  a  cranky  teacher,"  she  sighed. 

"  No!  And  I  will  study!  Read  the  damned  dictionary  right 
through."  He  crossed  his  legs  and  bent  over,  clutching  his 
ankle  with  both  hands.  "  I  know  what  you  mean.  I've  been 
rushing  from  picture  to  picture,  like  a  kid  let  loose  in  an  art 
gallery  for  the  first  time.  You  see,  it's  so  awful  recent  that 
I've  found  there  was  a  world — well,  a  world  where  beautiful 
things  counted.  I  was  on  the  farm  till  I  was  nineteen.  Dad 
is  a  good  farmer,  but  nothing  else.  Do  you  know  why  he  first 
sent  me  off  to  learn  tailoring?  I  wanted  to  study  drawing, 
and  he  had  a  cousin  that'd  made  a  lot  of  money  tailoring  out 
in  Dakota,  and  he  said  tailoring  was  a  lot  like  drawing,  so  he 
sent  me  down  to  a  punk  hole  called  Curlew,  to  work  in  a 
tailor  shop.  Up  to  that  time  I'd  only  had  three  months'  school 
ing  a  year — walked  to  school  two  miles,  through  snow  up  to 
my  knees — and  Dad  never  would  stand  for  my  having  a  single 
book  except  schoolbooks. 

"  I  never  read  a  novel  till  I  got  *  Dorothy  Vernon  of  Haddon 
Hall'  out  of  the  library  at  Curlew.  I  thought  it  was  the 
loveliest  thing  in  the  world!  Next  I  read  l  Barriers  Burned 
Away'  and  then  Pope's  translation  of  Homer.  Some  com 
bination,  all  right!  When  I  went  to  Minneapolis,  just  two 
years  ago,  I  guess  I'd  read  pretty  much  everything  in  that 
Curlew  library,  but  I'd  never  heard  of  Rossetti  or  John  Sargent 

or  Balzac  or  Brahms.  But Yump,  I'll  study.  Look  here! 

Shall  I  get  out  of  this  tailoring,  this  pressing  and  repairing?  " 

"  I  don't  see  why  a  surgeon  should  spend  very  much  time 
cobbling  shoes." 

"  But  what  if  I  find  I  can't  really  draw  and  design?  After 
fussing  around  in  New  York  or  Chicago,  I'd  feel  like  a  fool 
if  I  had  to  go  back  to  work  in  a  gents'  furnishings  store!  " 

"  Please  say  '  haberdashery.' " 

"  Haberdashery?  All  right.  I'll  remember."  He  shrugged 
and  spread  his  fingers  wide. 

She  was  humbled  by  his  humility;  she  put  away  in  her 
mind,  to  take  out  and  worry  over  later,  a  speculation  as  to 
whether  it  was  not  she  who  was  naive.  She  urged,  "  What 
i_f  you  do  have  to  go  back?  Most  of  us  dol  We  can't  all 


MAIN   STREET  34* 

be  artists — myself,  for  instance.  We  have  to  darn  socks,  and 
yet  we're  not  content  to  think  of  nothing  but  socks  and  darning- 
cotton.  I'd  demand  all  I  could  get — whether  I  finally  settled 
down  to  designing  frocks  or  building  temples  or  pressing  pants. 
What  if  you  do  drop  back?  You'll  have  had  the  adventure. 
Don't  be  too  meek  toward  life!  Go!  You're  young,  you're 
unmarried.  Try  everything!  Don't  listen  to  Nat  Hicks  and 
Sam  Clark  and  be  a  '  steady  young  man ' — in  order  to  help 
them  make  money.  You're  still  a  blessed  innocent.  Go  and 
play  till  the  Good  People  capture  you!  " 

"  But  I  don't  just  want  to  play.  I  want  to  make  something 
beautiful.  God!  And  I  don't  know  enough.  Do  you  get  it? 
Do  you  understand?  Nobody  else  ever  has!  Do  you  under 
stand?  " 

"  Yes." 

"And  so — —  But  here's  what  bothers  me:  I  like  fabrics; 
dinky  things  like  that;  little  drawings  and  elegant  words.  Bufc 
took  over  there  at  those  fields.  Big!  New!  Don't  it  seem 
kind  of  a  shame  to  leave  this  and  go  back  to  the  East  and 
Europe,  and  do  what  all  those  people  have  been  doing  so  long? 
Being  careful  about  words,  when  there's  millions  of  bushels  of 
wheat  here!  Reading  this  fellow  Pater,  when  I've  helped  Dad 
to  clear  fields!  " 

"  It's  good  to  clear  fields.  But  it's  not  for  you.  It's  one 
of  our  favorite  American  myths  that  broad  plains  necessarily 
make  broad  minds,  and  high  mountains  make  high  purpose. 
I  thought  that  myself,  when  I  first  came  to  the  prairie.  '  Big — 
new.7  Oh,  I  don't  want  to  deny  the  prairie  future.  It  will 
be  magnificent.  But  equally  I'm  hanged  if  I  want  to  be  bullied 
by  it,  go  to  war  on  behalf  of  Main  Street,  be  bullied  and  bullied 
by  the  faith  that  the  future  is  already  here  in  the  present,  and 
that  all  of  us  must  stay  and  worship  wheat-stacks  and  insist 
that  this  is  '  God's  Country ' — and  never,  of  course,  do  any 
thing  original  or  gay-colored  that  would  help  to  make  that 
future!  Anyway,  you  don't  belong  here.  Sam  Clark  and  Nat 
Hicks,  that's  what  our  big  newness  has  produced.  Go!  Before 
it's  too  late,  as  it  has  been  for — for  some  of  us.  Young  man, 
go  East  and  grow  up  with  the  revolution!  Then  perhaps  you 
may  come  back  and  tell  Sam  and  Nat  and  me  what  to  do  with 
the  land  we've  been  clearing — if  we'll  listen — if  we  don't  lynch 
you  first!  " 

He  looked  at  her  reverently.    She  could  hear  him  saying, 


344  MAIN   STREET 

"  I've  always  wanted  to  know  a  woman  who  would  talk  to 
me  like  that." 

Her  hearing  was  faulty.  He  was  saying  nothing  of  the  sort 
He  was  saying: 

"  Why  aren't  you  happy  with  your  husband?  " 

"  I— you " 

"He  doesn't  care  for  the  l blessed  innocent*  part  of  you, 
does  he!  " 

"  Erik,  you  mustn't " 

"  First  you  tell  me  to  go  and  be  free,  and  then  you  say  that 
I  <  mustn't ' !  " 

"  I  know.  But  you  mustn't You  must  be  more  im 
personal!  " 

He  glowered  at  her  like  a  downy  young  owl.  She  wasn't 
sure  but  she  thought  that  he  muttered,  "  I'm  damned  if  I  will." 
She  considered  with  wholesome  fear  the  perils  of  meddling  with 
other  people's  destinies,  and  she  said  timidly,  "Hadn't  we 
better  start  back  now?  " 

He  mused,  "  You're  younger  than  I  am.  Your  lips  are  for 
songs  about  rivers  in  the  morning  and  lakes  at  twilight.  I  don't 
see  how  anybody  could  ever  hurt  you.  .  .  .  Yes.  We 
better  go." 

He  trudged  beside  her,  his  eyes  averted.  Hugh  experi 
mentally  took  his  thumb.  He  looked  down  at  the  baby  seri 
ously.  He  burst  out,  "All  right.  I'll  do  it.  I'll  stay  here 
one  year.  Save.  Not  spend  so  much  money  on  clothes.  And 
then  I'll  go  East,  to  art-school.  Work  on  the  side — tailor  shop, 
dressmaker's.  I'll  learn  what  I'm  good  for:  designing  clothes, 
stage-settings,  illustrating,  or  selling  collars  to  fat  men.  All 
settled."  He  peered  at  her,  unsmiling. 

"  Can  you  stand  it  here  in  town  for  a  year?  " 

"With  you  to  look  at?" 

"  Please!  I  mean:  Don't  the  people  here  think  you're  an 
odd  bird?  (They  do  me,  I  assure  you!)  " 

"  I  don't  know.  I  never  notice  much.  Oh,  they  do  kid  me 
about  not  being  in  the  army — especially  the  old  warhorses,  the 
old  men  that  aren't  going  themselves.  And  this  Bogart  boy. 
And  Mr.  Hicks's  son — he's  a  horrible  brat.  But  probably  he's 
licensed  to  say  what  he  thinks  about  his  father's  hired  man!  " 

"He's  beastly!  " 

They  were  in  town.  They  passed  Aunt  Bessie's  house.  Aunt 
Bessie  and  Mrs.  Bogart  were  at  the  window,  and  Carol  saw 


MAIN   STREET  343 

that  they  were  staring  so  intently  that  they  answered  her  wave 
only  with  the  stiffly  raised  hands  of  automatons.  In  the  next 
block  Mrs.  Dr.  Westlake  was  gaping  from  her  porch.  Carol 
said  with  an  embarrassed  quaver: 

"  I  want  to  run  in  and  see  Mrs.  Westlake.  I'll  say  good-by 
here." 

She  avoided  his  eyes. 

Mrs.  Westlake  was  affable.  Carol  felt  that  she  was  expected 
to  explain;  and  while  she  was  mentally  asserting  that  she'd 
be  hanged  if  she'd  explain,  she  was  explaining: 

"  Hugh  captured  that  Valborg  boy  up  the  track.  They  be 
came  such  good  friends.  And  I  talked  to  him  for  a  while.  I'd 
heard  he  was  eccentric,  but  really,  I  found  him  quite  intelligent. 
Crude,  but  he  reads — reads  almost  the  way  Dr.  Westlake  does." 

"  That's  fine.  Why  does  he  stick  here  in  town?  What's 
this  I  hear  about  his  being  interested  in  Myrtle  Cass?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  Is  he?  I'm  sure  he  isn't!  He  said  he  was 
quite  lonely!  Besides,  Myrtle  is  a  babe  in  arms!  " 

"Twenty-one  if  she's  a  day!  " 

"Well Is  the  doctor  going  to  do  any  hunting  this 

fall?  " 


The  need  of  explaining  Erik  dragged  her  back  into  doubting. 
For  all  hi$  ardent  reading,  and  his  ardent  life,  was  he  anything 
but  a  small-town  youth  bred  on  an  illiberal  farm  and  in  cheap 
tailor  shops?  He  had  rough  hands.  She  had  been  attracted 
only  by  hands  that  were  fine  and  suave,  like  those  of  her  father. 
Delicate  hands  and  resolute  purpose.  But  this  boy — powerful 
seamed  hands  and  flabby  will. 

"  It's  not  appealing  weakness  like  his,  but  sane  strength  that 

will  animate  the  Gopher  Prairies.  Only Does  that  mean 

anything?  Or  am  I  echoing  Vida?  The  world  has  always  let 
*  strong  '  statesmen  and  soldiers — the  men  with  strong  voices — 
take  control,  and  what  have  the  thundering  boobies  done? 
What  is  '  strength '? 

"  This  classifying  of  people!  I  suppose  tailors  differ  as  much 
as  burglars  or  kings. 

"  Erik  frightened  me  when  he  turned  on  me.  Of  course 
be  didn't  mean  anything,  but  I  mustn't  let  him  be  sc  personal 

"Amazing  impertinence  1 


346  MAIN    STREET 

"  But  he  didn't  mean  to  be. 

"  His  hands  are  firm.  I  wonder  if  sculptors  don't  have 
thick  hands,  too? 

"  Of  course  if  there  really  is  anything  I  can  do  to  help 
the  boy 

"Though  I  despise  these  people  who  interfere.  He  must 
be  independent." 

m 

She  wasn't  altogether  pleased,  the  week  after,  when  Erik  was 
independent  and,  without  asking  for  her  inspiration,  planned 
the  tennis  tournament.  It  proved  that  he  had  learned  to  play 
in  Minneapolis;  that,  next  to  Juanita  Haydock,  he  had  the 
best  serve  in  town.  Tennis  was  well  spoken  of  in  Gopher 
Prairie  and  almost  never  played.  There  were  three  courts: 
one  belonging  to  Harry  Haydock,  one  to  the  cottages  at  the 
lake,  and  one,  a  rough  field  on  the  outskirts,  laid  out  by  a 
defunct  tennis  association. 

Erik  had  been  seen  in  flannels  and  an  imitation  panama  hat, 
playing  on  the  abandoned  court  with  Willis  Woodford,  the  clerk 
in  Stowbody's  bank.  Suddenly  he  was  going  about  proposing 
the  reorganization  of  the  tennis  association,  and  writing  names 
in  a  fifteen-cent  note-book  bought  for  the  purpose  at  Dyer's. 
When  he  came  to  Carol  he  was  so  excited  over  being  an 
organizer  that  he  did  not  stop  to  talk  of  himself  and  Aubrey 
Beardsley  for  more  than  ten  minutes.  He  begged,  "  Will  you 
get  some  of  the  folks  to  come  in?  "  and  she  nodded  agreeably. 

He  proposed  an  informal  exhibition  match  to  advertise  the 
association;  he  suggested  that  Carol  and  himself,  the  Haydocks, 
the  Woodfords,  and  the  Dillons  play  doubles,  and  that  the 
association  be  formed  from  the  gathered  enthusiasts.  He  had 
asked  Harry  Haydock  to  be  tentative  president.  Harry,  he 
reported,  had  promised,  "  Ail  right.  You  bet.  But  you  go 
ahead  and  arrange  things,  and  I'll  O.K.  'em."  Erik  planned 
that  the  match  should  be  held  Saturday  afternoon,  on  the  old 
public  court  at  the  edge  of  town.  He  was  happy  in  being,  for 
the  first  time,  part  of  Gopher  Prairie. 

Through  the  week  Carol  heard  how  select  an  attendance 
there  was  to  be. 

Kennicott  growled  that  he  didn't  care  to  go. 

Had  he  any  objections  to  her  playing  with  Erik? 

No;  sure  not;  she  needed  the  exercise. 


MAIN   STREET  347 

Carol  went  to  the  match  early.  The  court  was  in  a  meadow 
out  on  the  New  Antonia  road.  Only  Erik  was  there.  He  was 
dashing  about  with  a  rake,  trying  to  make  the  court  somewhat 
less  like  a  plowed  field.  He  admitted  that  he  had  stage- 
fright  at  the  thought  of  the  coming  horde.  Willis  and  Mrs. 
Woodford  arrived,  Willis  in  home-made  knickers  and  black 
sneakers  through  at  the  toe;  then  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Harvey  Dillon, 
people  as  harmless  and  grateful  as  the  Woodfords. 

Carol  was  embarrassed  and  excessively  agreeable,  like  the 
bishop's  lady  trying  not  to  feel  out  of  place  at  a  Baptist 
bazaar. 

They  waited. 

The  match  was  scheduled  for  three.  As  spectators  there  as 
sembled  one  youthful  grocery  clerk,  stopping  his  Ford  delivery 
wagon  to  stare  from  the  seat,  and  one  solemn  small  boy,  tug 
ging  a  smaller  sister  who  had  a  careless  nose. 

"  I  wonder  where  the  Haydocks  are?  They  ought  to  show 
up,  at  least,"  said  Erik. 

Carol  smiled  confidently  at  him,  and  peered  down  the  empty 
road  toward  town.  Only  heat-waves  and  dust  and  dusty 
weeds. 

At  half-past  three  no  one  had  come,  and  the  grocery  boy 
reluctantly  got  out,  cranked  his  Ford,  glared  at  them  in  a 
disillusioned  manner,  and  rattled  away.  The  small  boy  and  his 
sister  ate  grass  and  sighed. 

The  players  pretended  to  be  exhilarated  by  practising  serv^ 
ice,  but  they  startled  at  each  dust-cloud  from  a  motor  car. 
None  of  the  cars  turned  into  the  meadow — none  till  a  quartet 
to  four,  when  Kennicott  drove  in. 

Carol's  heart  swelled.  "  How  loyal  he  is!  Depend  on  him! 
He'd  come,  if  nobody  else  did.  Even  though  he  doesn't  care 
for  the  game.  The  old  darling!  " 

Kennicott  did  not  alight.  He  called  out,  "  Carrie!  Harry 
Haydock  'phoned  me  that  they've  decided  to  hold  the  tennis 
matches,  or  whatever  you  call  'em,  down  at  the  cottages  at  the 
lake,  instead  of  here.  The  bunch  are  down  there  now:  Hay- 
docks  and  Dyers  and  Clarks  and  everybody.  Harry  wanted  to 
know  if  I'd  bring  you  down.  I  guess  I  can  take  the  time — 
come  right  back  after  supper." 

Before  Carol  could  sum  it  all  up,  Erik  stammered,  "  Why, 
Haydock  didn't  say  anything  to  me  about  the  change.  Of 
course  he's  the  president,  but " 


348  MAIN    STREET 

Kennicott  looked  at  him  heavily,  and  grunted,  "  I  don't  know 
a  thing  about  it.  ...  Coming,  Carrie?  " 

"  I  am  not!  The  match  was  to  be  here,  and  it  will  be  here! 
You  can  tell  Harry  Haydock  that  he's  beastly  rude!  "  She 
rallied  the  five  who  had  been  left  out,  who  would  always  be 
left  out.  "  Come  on!  We'll  toss  to  see  which  four  of  us  play 
the  Only  and  Original  First  Annual  Tennis  Tournament  of 
Forest  Hills,  Del  Monte,  and  Gopher  Prairie!  " 

"Don't  know  as  I  blame  you,"  said  Kennicott.  "We'll 
have  supper  at  home  then?  "  He  drove  off. 

She  hated  him  for  his  composure.  He  had  ruined  her  de 
fiance.  She  felt  much  less  like  Susan  B.  Anthony  as  she  turned 
to  her  huddled  followers. 

Mrs.  Dillon  and  Willis  Woodford  lost  the  toss.  The  others 
played  out  the  game,  slowly,  painfully,  stumbling  on  the  rough 
earth,  muffing  the  easiest  shots,  watched  only  by  the  small  boy 
and  his  sniveling  sister.  Beyond  the  court  stretched  the  eternal 
stubble-fields.  The  four  marionettes,  awkwardly  going  through 
exercises,  insignificant  in  the  hot  sweep  of  contemptuous  land, 
Were  not  heroic;  their  voices  did  not  ring  out  in  the  score,  but 
sounded  apologetic;  and  when  the  game  was  over  they  glanced 
about  as  though  they  were  waiting  to  be  laughed  at. 

They  walked  home.  Carol  took  Erik's  arm.  Through  her 
thin  linen  sleeve  she  could  feel  the  crumply  warmth  of  his 
familiar  brown  jersey  coat.  She  observed  that  there  were 
purple  and  red-gold  threads  interwoven  with  the  brown.  She 
remembered  the  first  time  she  had  seen  it, 

Their  talk  was  nothing  but  improvisations  on  the  theme: 
"I  never  did  like  this  Haydock.  He  just  considers  his  own 
convenience."  Ahead  of  them,  the  Dillons  and  Woodfords 
spoke  of  the  weather  and  B.  J.  Gougerling's  new  bungalow.  No 
one  referred  to  their  tennis  tournament.  At  hsr  gate  Carol 
shook  hands  firmly  with  Erik  and  smiled  at  him. 

Next  morning,  Sunday  morning,  when  Carol  was  on  the 
porch,  the  Haydocks  drove  up. 

"We  didn't  mean  to  be  rude  to  you,  dearie!  "  implored 
Juanita.  "  I  wouldn't  have  you  think  that  for  anything.  We 
planned  that  Will  and  you  should  come  down  and  have  supper 
at  our  cottage." 

"  No.  I'm  sure  you  didn't  mean  to  be."  Carol  was  super- 
neighborly.  "  But  I  do  think  you  ought  to  apologize  to  poor 
Erik  Valborg.  He  was  terribly  hurt." 


MAIN   STREET  349 

"Oh.  Valborg.  I  don't  care  so  much  what  he  thinks," 
objected  Harry.  "  He's  nothing  but  a  conceited  buttinsky. 
Juanita  and  I  kind  of  figured  he  was  trying  to  run  this 
tennis  thing  too  darn  much  anyway." 

"  But  you  asked  him  to  make  arrangements." 

"  I  know,  but  I  don't  like  him.  Good  Lord,  you  couldn't 
hurt  his  feelings!  He  dresses  up  like  a  chorus  man — and, 
by  golly,  he  looks  like  one! — but  he's  nothing  but  a  Swede  farm 
boy,  and  these  foreigners,  they  all  got  hides  like  a  covey  of 
rhinoceroses." 

"  But  he  is  hurt!  " 

"  Well I  don't  suppose  I  ought  to  have  gone  off  half- 
cocked,  and  not  jollied  him  along.  I'll  give  him  a  cigar. 
He'll " 

Juanita  had  been  licking  her  lips  and  staring  at  Carol.  She 
interrupted  her  husband,  "Yes,  I  do  think  Harry  ought  to 
fix  it  up  with  him.  You  like  him,  don't  you,  Carol?  " 

Over  and  through  Carol  ran  a  frightened  cautiousness. 
"  Like  him?  I  haven't  an  i-dea.  He  seems  to  be  a  very  decent 
young  man.  I  just  felt  that  when  he'd  worked  so  hard  on 
the  plans  for  the  match,  it  was  a  shame  not  to  be  nice  to  him." 

"  Maybe  there's  something  to  that,"  mumbled  Harry;  then, 
at  sight  of  Kennic.ott  coming  round  the  corner  tugging  the  red 
garden  hose  by  its  brass  nozzle,  he  roared  in  relief,  "  What 
d'  you  think  you're  trying  to  do,  doc?  " 

While  Kennicott  explained  in  detail  all  that  he  thought  he 
was  trying  to  do,  while  he  rubbed  his  chin  and  gravely  stated, 
"  Struck  me  the  grass  was  looking  kind  of  brown  in  patches — 
didn't  know  but  what  I'd  give  it  a  sprinkling,"  and  while 
Harry  agreed  that  this  was  an  excellent  idea,  Juanita  made 
friendly  noises  and,  behind  the  gilt  screen  of  an  affectionate 
smile,  watched  Carol's  face. 


IV 

She  wanted  to  see  Erik.  She  wanted  some  one  to  play  with! 
There  wasn't  even  so  dignified  and  sound  an  excuse  as 
having  Kennicott's  trousers  pressed;  when  she  inspected  them, 
all  three  pairs  looked  discouragingly  neat.  She  probably 
would  not  have  ventured  on  it  had  she  not  spied  Nat  Hicks 
in  the  pool-parlor,  being  witty  over  bottle-pool.  Erik  was 
alone!  She  fluttered  toward  the  tailor  shop,*dashed  into  its 


350  MAIN   STREET 

slovenly  heat  with  the  comic  fastidiousness  of  a  humming  bird 
dipping  into  a  dry  tiger-lily.  It  was  after  she  had  entered 
that  she  found  an  excuse. 

Erik  was  in  the  back  room,  cross-legged  on  a  long  table,  sew 
ing  a  vest.  But  he  looked  as  though  he  were  doing  this  ec 
centric  thing  to  amuse  himself. 

"Hello.  I  wonder  if  you  couldn't  plan  a  sports-suit  for 
me?  "  she  said  breathlessly. 

He  stared  at  her;  he  protested,  "  No,  I  won't!  God!  I'm 
not  going  to  be  a  tailor  with  you!  " 

"Why,  Erik!  "she  said,  like  a  mildly  shocked  mother. 

It  occurred  to  her  that  she  did  not  need  a  suit,  and  that 
the  order  might  have  been  hard  to  explain  to  Kennicott. 

He  swung  down  from  the  table.  "I  want  to  show  you 
something."  He  rummaged  in  the  roll-top  desk  on  which  Nat 
Hicks  kept  bills,  buttons,  calendars,  buckles,  thread-channeled 
wax,  shotgun  shells,  samples  of  brocade  for  "  fancy  vests," 
fishing-reels,  pornographic  post-cards,  shreds  of  buckram  lin 
ing.  He  pulled  out  a  blurred  sheet  of  Bristol  board  and 
anxiously  gave  it  to  her.  It  was  a  sketch  for  a  frock.  It 
was  not  well  drawn;  it  was  too  finicking;  the  pillars  in  the 
background  were  grotesquely  squat.  But  the  frock  had  an 
original  back,  very  low,  with  a  central  triangular  section  from 
the  waist  to  a  string  of  jet  beads  at  the  neck. 

"It's  stunning.    But  how  it  would  shock  Mrs.  Clark!  " 

"Yes,  wouldn't  it!" 

"You  must  let  yourself  go  more  when  you're  drawing." 

"Don't  know  if  I  can.  I've  started  kind  of  late.  But 
listen!  What  do  you  think  I've  done  this  two  weeks?  I've 
read  almost  clear  through  a  Latin  grammar,  and  about  twenty 
pages  of  Caesar." 

"  Splendid !  You  are  lucky.  .You  haven't  a  teacher  to  make 
you  artificial." 

"You're  my  teacher!  " 

There  was  a  dangerous  edge  t)f  personality  to  his  voice. 
She  was  offended  and  agitated.  She  turned  her  shoulder  on 
him,  stared  through  the  back  window,  studying  this  typical 
center  of  a  typical  Main  Street  block,  a  vista  hidden  from 
casual  strollers.  The  backs  of  the  chief  establishments  in  town 
surrounded  a  quadrangle  neglected,  dirty,  and  incomparably 
dismal.  From  the  front,  Rowland  &  Could's  grocery  was 
smug  enough,  but  attached  to  the  rear  was  a  lean-to  of  storm- 


MAIN    STREET  351 

streaked  pine  lumber  with  a  sanded  tar  roof — a  staggering 
doubtful  shed  behind  which  was  a  heap  of  ashes,  splintered 
packing-boxes,  shreds  of  excelsior,  crumpled  straw-board, 
broken  olive-bottles,  rotten  fruit,  and  utterly  disintegrated 
vegetables:  orange  carrots  turning  black,  and  potatoes  with 
ulcers.  The  rear  of  the  Bon  Ton  Store  was  grim  with  blistered 
black-painted  iron  shutters,  under  them  a  pile  of  once  glossy 
red  shirt-boxes,  now  a  pulp  from  recent  rain. 

As  seen  from  Main  Street,  Oleson  &  McGuire's  Meat  Market 
had  a  sanitary  and  virtuous  expression  with  its '  new  tile 
counter,  fresh  sawdust  on  the  floor,  and  a  hanging  veal  cut 
in  rosettes.  But  she  now  viewed  a  back  room  with  a  home 
made  refrigerator  of  yellow  smeared  with  black  grease.  A  man 
in  an  apron  spotted  with  dry  blood  was  hoisting  out  a  hard 
slab  of  meat. 

Behind  Billy's  Lunch,  the  cook,  in  an  apron  which  must 
long  ago  have  been  white,  smoked  a  pipe  and  spat  at  the 
pest  of  sticky  flies.  In  the  center  of  the  block,  by  itself,  was 
the  stable  for  the  three  horses  of  the  drayman,  and  beside  it  a 
pile  of  manure. 

The  rear  of  Ezra  Stowbody's  bank  was  whitewashed,  and 
back  of  it  was  a  concrete  walk  and  a  three-foot  square  of 
grass,  but  the  window  was  barred,  and  behind  the  bars  she 
saw  Willis  Woodford  cramped  over  figures  in  pompous  books. 
He  raised  his  head,  jerkily  rubbed  his  eyes,  and  went  back 
to  the  eternity  of  figures. 

The  backs  of  the  other  shops  were  an  impressionistic  picture 
of  dirty  grays,  drained  browns,  writhing  heaps  of  refuse. 

"  Mine  is  a  back-yard  romance — with  a  journeyman  tailor!  " 

She  was  saved  from  self-pity  as  she  began  to  think  through 
Erik's  mind.  She  turned  to  him  with  an  indignant,  "  It's 
disgusting  that  this  is  all  you  have  to  look  at." 

He  considered  it.  "Outside  there?  I  don't  notice  much. 
I'm  learning  to  look  inside.  Not  awful  easy!  " 

"  Yes.    ...    I  must  be  hurrying." 

As  she  walked  home — without  hurrying — she  remembered 
her  father  saying  to  a  serious  ten-year-old  Carol,  "  Lady,  only 
a  fool  thinks  he's  superior  to  beautiful  bindings,  but  only  a 
double-distilled  fool  reads  nothing  but  bindings." 

She  was  startled  by  the  return  of  her  father,  startled  by  a 
sudden  conviction  that  in  this  flaxen  boy  she  had  found 
the  gray  reticent  judge  who  was  divine  love,  perfect  under- 


352  MAIN   STREET 

standing.  She  debated  it,  furiously  denied  it,  reaffirmed  it, 
ridiculed  it.  Of  one  thing  she  was  unhappily  certain:  there 
was  nothing  of  the  beloved  father  image  in  Will  Kennicott. 


She  wondered  why  she  sang  so  often,  and  why  she  found 
so  many  pleasant  things — lamplight  seen  though  trees  on 
a  cool  evening,  sunshine  on  brown  wood,  morning  sparrows, 
black  sloping  roofs  turned  to  plates  of  silver  by  moonlight. 
Pleasant  things,  small  friendly  things,  and  pleasant  places — a 
field  of  goldenrod,  a  pasture  by  the  creek — and  suddenly  a 
wealth  of  pleasant  people.  Vida  was  lenient  to  Carol  at  the 
surgical-dressing  class;  Mrs.  Dave  Dyer  flattered  her  with 
questions  about  her  health,  baby,  cook,  and  opinions  on  the 
war. 

Mrs.  Dyer  seemed  not  to  share  the  town's  prejudice  against 
Erik.  "  He's  a  nice-looking  fellow ;  we  must  have  him  go  on 
one  of  our  picnics  some  time."  Unexpectedly,  Dave  Dyer  also 
liked  him.  The  tight-fisted  little  farceur  had  a  confused  rever 
ence  for  anything  that  seemed  to  him  refined  or  clever.  He 
answered  Harry  Haydock's  sneers,  "  That's  all  right  now! 
Elizabeth  may  doll  himself  up  too  much,  but  he's  smart,  and 
don't  you  forget  it!  I  was  asking  round  trying  to  find 
out  where  this  Ukraine  is,  and  darn  if  he  didn't  tell  me. 
What's  the  matter  with  his  talking  so  polite?  Hell's  bells, 
Harry,  no  harm  in  being  polite.  There's  some  regular  he- 
men  that  are  just  as  polite  as  women,  prett'  near." 

Carol  found  herself  going  about  rejoicing,  "  How  neighborly 
the  town  is !  "  She  drew  up  with  a  dismayed  "  Am  I  falling  in 
love  with  this  boy?  That's  ridiculous!  I'm  merely  interested 
in  him.  I  like  to  think  of  helping  him  to  succeed." 

But  as  she  dusted  the  living-room,  mended  a  collar-band, 
bathed  Hugh,  she  was  picturing  herself  and  a  young  artist — 
an  Apollo  nameless  and  evasive — building  a  house  in  the  Berk- 
shires  or  in  Virginia;  exuberantly  buying  a  chair  with  his 
first  check;  reading  poetry  together,  and  frequently  being 
earnest  over  valuable  statistics  about  labor;  tumbling  out  of 
bed  early  for  a  Sunday  walk,  and  chattering  (where  Kennicott 
would  have  yawned)  over  bread  and  butter  by  a  lake.  Hugh 
was  in  her  pictures,  and  he  adored  the  young  artist,  who  made 
castles  of  chairs  and  rugs  for  him.  Beyond  these  playtimes 


MAIN   STREET  353 

she  saw  the  "  things  I  could  do  for  Erik  " — and  she  admitted 
that  Erik  did  partly  make  up  the  image  of  her  altogether  perfect 
artist. 

In  panic  she  insisted  on  being  attentive  to  Kennicott,  when 
he  wanted  to  be  left  alone  to  read  the  newspaper. 


VI 

She  needed  new  clothes.  Kennicott  had  promised,  "We'll 
have  a  good  trip  down  to  the  Cities  in  the  fall,  and  take  plenty 
of  time  for  it,  and  you  can  get  your  new  glad-rags  then."  But 
as  she  examined  her  wardrobe  she  flung  her  ancient  black 
velvet  frock  on  the  floor  and  raged,  "  They're  disgraceful. 
Everything  I  have  is  falling  to  pieces." 

There  was  a  new  dressmaker  and  milliner,  a  Mrs.  Swift- 
waite.  It  was  said  that  she  was  not  altogether  an  elevating 
influence  in  the  way  she  glanced  at  men;  that  she  would  as 
soon  take  away  a  legally  appropriated  husband  as  not;  that  if 
there  was  any  Mr.  Swiftwaite,  "  it  certainly  was  strange  that 
nobody  seemed  to  know  anything  about  him!  "  But  she  had 
made  for  Rita  Gould  an  organdy  frock  and  hat  to  match 
universally  admitted  to  be  "  too  cunning  for  words,"  and  the 
matrons  went  cautiously,  with  darting  eyes  and  excessive 
politeness,  to  the  rooms  which  Mrs.  Swiftwaite  had  taken  in 
the  old  Luke  Dawson  house,  on  Floral  Avenue. 

With  none  of  the  spiritual  preparation  which  normally  pre 
cedes  the  buying  of  new  clothes  in  Gopher  Prairie,  Carol 
marched  into  Mrs.  Swiftwaite's,  and  demanded,  "  I  want  to 
see  a  hat,  and  possibly  a  blouse." 

In  the  dingy  old  front  parlor  which  she  had  tried  to  make 
smart  with  a  pier  glass,  covers  from  fashion  magazines, 
anemic  French  prints,  Mrs.  Swiftwaite  moved  smoothly  among 
the  dress-dummies  and  hat-rests,  spoke  smoothly  as  she  took 
up  a  small  black  and  red  turban.  "  I  am  sure  the  lady  will 
find  this  extremely  attractive." 

"It's  dreadfully  tabby  and  small-towny,"  thought  Carol, 
while  she  soothed,  "  I  don't  believe  it  quite  goes  with  me." 

"It's  the  choicest  thing  I  have,  and  I'm  sure  you'll  find 
it  suits  you  beautifully.  It  has  a  great  deal  of  chic.  Please 
try  it  on,"  said  Mrs.  Swiftwaite,  more  smoothly  than  ever. 

Carol  studied  the  woman.  She  was  as  imitative  as  a  glass 
diamond.  She  was  the  more  rustic  in  her  effort  to  appear 


354  MAIN   STREET 

urban.  She  wore  a  severe  high-collared  blouse  with  a  row  of 
small  black  buttons,  which  was  becoming  to  her  low-breasted 
slim  neatness,  but  her  skirt  was  hysterically  checkered,  her 
cheeks  were  too  highly  rouged,  her  lips  too  sharply  penciled. 
She  was  magnificently  a  specimen  of  the  illiterate  divorcee  of 
forty  made  up  to  look  thirty,  clever,  and  alluring. 

While  she  was  trying  on  the  hat  Carol  felt  very  condescend 
ing.  She  took  it  off,  shook  her  head,  explained  with  the  kind 
smile  for  inferiors,  "  I'm  afraid  it  won't  do,  though  it's  UD- 
usually  nice  for  so  small  a  town  as  this." 

"  But  it's  really  absolutely  New-Yorkish." 

"Well,  it " 

"You  see,  I  know  my  New  York  styles.  I  lived  in  New 
York  for  years,  besides  almost  a  year  in  Akron!  " 

"  You  did?  "  Carol  was  polite,  and  edged  away,  and  went 
home  unhappily.  She  was  wondering  whether  her  own  airs 
were  as  laughable  as  Mrs.  Swiftwaite's.  She  put  on  the  eye 
glasses  which  Kennicott  had  recently  given  to  her  for  reading, 
and  looked  over  a  grocery  bill.  She  went  hastily  up  to  her 
room,  to  her  mirror.  She  was  in  a  mood  of  self-depreciation. 
Accurately  or  not,  this  was  the  picture  she  saw  in  the  mirror: 

Neat  rimless  eye-glasses.  Black  hair  clumsily  tucked  undef 
a  mauve  straw  hat  which  would  have  suited  a  spinster.  Cheeki 
clear,  bloodless.  Thin  nose.  Gentle  mouth  and  chin.  A 
modest  voile  blouse  with  an  edging  of  lace  at  the  neck.  A 
virginal  sweetness  and  timorousness — no  flare  of  gaiety,  no 
suggestion  of  cities,  music,  quick  laughter. 

"  I  have  become  a  small-town  woman.  Absolute.  Typical. 
Modest  and  moral  and  safe.  Protected  from  life.  Genteel! 
The  Village  Virus — the  village  virtuousness.  My  hair — just 
scrambled  together.  What  can  Erik  see  in  that  wedded  spinster 
there?  He  does  like  me!  Because  I'm  the  only  woman  who's 
decent  to  him!  How  long  before  he'll  wake  up  to  me?  .  .  . 
I've  waked  up  to  myself.  .  .  .  Am  I  as  old  as — as  old 
as  I  am? 

"  Not  really  old.    Become  careless.    Let  myself  look  tabby. 

"  I  want  to  chuck  every  stitch  I  own.  Black  hair  and 
pale  cheeks — they'd  go  with  a  Spanish  dancer's  costume — 
rose  behind  my  ear,  scarlet  mantilla  over  one  shoulder,  the 
other  bare." 

She  seized  the  rouge  sponge,  daubed  her  cheeks,  scratched  at 
her  lips  with  the  vermilion  pencil  until  they  stung,  tore  opea 


MAIN   STREET  355 

her  collar.  She  posed  with  her  thin  arms  in  the  attitude  of 
the  fandango.  She  dropped  them  sharply.  She  shook  her  head. 
"  My  heart  doesn't  dance,"  she  said.  She  flushed  as  she 
fastened  her  blouse. 

"  At  least  I'm  much  more  graceful  than  Fern  Mullins. 

"  Heavens!  When  I  came  here  from  the  Cities,  girls  imitated 
me.  Now  I'm  trying  to  imitate  a  city  girl." 


CHAPTER  XXX 


FERN  Mullins  rushed  into  the  house  on  a  Saturday  morning 
early  in  September  and  shrieked  at  Carol,  "  School  starts  next 
Tuesday.  I've  got  to  have  one  more  spree  before  I'm  arrested. 
Let's  get  up  a  picnic  down  the  lake  for  this  afternoon.  Won't 
you  come,  Mrs.  Kennicott,  and  the  doctor?  Cy  Bogart  wants 
to  go — he's  a  brat  but  he's  lively." 

"I  don't  think  the  doctor  can  go,"  sedately.  "He  said 
something  about  having  to  make  a  country  call  this  afternoon. 
But  I'd  love  to." 

"  That's  dandy!     Who  can  we  get?  " 

"  Mrs.  Dyer  might  be  chaperon.  She's  been  so  nice.  Ana 
maybe  Dave,  if  he  could  get  away  from  the  store." 

"  How  about  Erik  Valborg?  I  think  he's  got  lots  more  style 
than  these  town  boys.  You  like  him  all  right,  don't  you?  " 

So  the  picnic  of  Carol,  Fern,  Erik,  Cy  Bogart,  and  the 
Dyers  was  not  only  moral  but  inevitable. 

They  drove  to  the  birch  grove  on  the  south  shore  of  Lake 
Minniemashie.  Dave  Dyer  was  his  most  clownish  self.  He 
yelped,  jigged,  wore  Carol's  hat,  dropped  an  ant  down  Fern's 
back,  and  when  they  went  swimming  (the  women  modestly 
changing  in  the  car  with  the  side  curtains  up,  the  men  un 
dressing  behind  the  bushes,  constantly  repeating,  "  Gee,  hope 
we  don't  run  into  poison  ivy"),  Dave  splashed  water  on 
them  and  dived  to  clutch  his  wife's  ankle.  He  infected  the 
others.  Erik  gave  an  imitation  of  the  Greek  dancers  he  had 
seen  in  vaudeville,  and  when  they  sat  down  to  picnic  supper 
spread  on  a  lap-robe  on  the  grass,  Cy  climbed  a  tree  to  throw 
acorns  at  them. 

But  Carol  could  not  frolic. 

She  had  made  herself  young,  with  parted  hair,  sailor  blouse 
and  large  blue  bow,  white  canvas  shoes  and  short  linen  skirt. 
Her  mirror  had  asserted  that  she  looked  exactly  as  she  had  io 
college,  that  her  throat  was  smooth,  her  collar-bone  not  very 
noticeable.  But  she  was  under  restraint.  When  they  swam 

356 


MAIN    STREET  357 

she  enjoyed  the  freshness  of  the  water  but  she  was  irritated  by 
Cy's  tricks,  by  Dave's  excessive  good  spirits.  She  admired 
Erik's  dance;  he  could  never  betray  bad  taste,  as  Cy  did,  and 
Dave.  She  waited  for  him  to  come  to  her.  He  did  not  come. 
By  his  joyousness  he  had  apparently  endeared  himself  to 
the  Dyers.  Maud  watched  him  and,  after  supper,  cried  to 
him,  "  Come  sit  down  beside  me,  bad  boy!  "  Carol  winced 
at  his  willingness  to  be  a  bad  boy  and  come  and  sit,  at  his  en 
joyment  of  a  not  very  stimulating  game  in  which  Maud,  Dave, 
and  Cy  snatched  slices  of  cold  tongue  from  one  another's 
plates.  Maud,  it  seemed,  was  slightly  dizzy  from  the  swim. 
She  remarked  publicly,  "Dr.  Kennicott  has  helped  me  so  much 
by  putting  me  on  a  diet,"  but  it  was  to  Erik  alone  that  she 
gave  the  complete  version  of  her  peculiarity  in  being  so  sensi 
tive,  so  easily  hurt  by  the  slightest  cross  word,  that  she  simply 
had  to  have  nice  cheery  friends. 

Erik  was  nice  and  cheery. 

Carol  assured  herself,  "Whatever  faults  I  may  have,  I 
certainly  couldn't  ever  be  jealous.  I  do  like  Maud;  she's 
always  so  pleasant.  But  I  wonder  if  she  isn't  just  a  bit  fond  of 
fishing  for  men's  sympathy?  Playing  with  Erik,  and  her 
married Well But  she  looks  at  him  in  that  languish 
ing,  swooning,  mid- Victorian  way.  Disgusting!  " 

Cy  Bogart  lay  between  the  roots  of  a  big  birch,  smoking  his 
pipe  and  teasing  Fern,  assuring  her  that  a  week  from  now, 
when  he  was  again  a  high-school  boy  and  she  his  teacher,  he'd 
wink  at  her  in  class.  Maud  Dyer  wanted  Erik  to  "  come  down 
to  the  beach  to  see  the  darling  little  minnies."  Carol  was  left 
to  Dave,  who  tried  to  entertain  her  with  humorous  accounts 
of  Ella  Stowbody's  fondness  for  chocolate  peppermints.  She 
watched  Maud  Dyer  put  her  hand  on  Erik's  shoulder  to  steady 
herself. 

"  Disgusting!  "  she  thought. 

Cy  Bogart  covered  Fern's  nervous  hand  with  his  red  paw,  and 
when  she  bounced  with  half-anger  and  shrieked,  "  Let  go,  I 
tell  you!  "  he  grinned  and  waved  his  pipe — a  gangling  twenty- 
year-old  satyr. 

"  Disgusting!  " 

When  Maud  and  Erik  returned  and  the  grouping  shifted, 
Erik  muttered  at  Carol,  "  There's  a  boat  on  shore.  Let's  skip 
off  and  have  a  row." 

"What  will  they  think?"  she  worried.     She  saw  Maud 


358  MAIN    STREET 

Dyer  peer  at  Erik  with  moist  possessive  eyes.  "  Yes!  Let's!  " 
she  said. 

She  cried  to  the  party,  with  the  canonical  amount  of  spright- 
liness,  "  Good-by,  everybody.  We'll  wireless  you  from  China." 

As  the  rhythmic  oars  plopped  and  creaked,  as  she  floated 
on  an  unreality  of  delicate  gray  over  which  the  sunset  was 
poured  out  thin,  the  irritation  of  Cy  and  Maud  slipped  away. 
Erik  smiled  at  her  proudly.  She  considered  him — coatless,  in 
white  thin  shirt.  She  was  conscious  of  his  male  differ entness, 
of  his  flat  masculine  sides,  his  thin  thighs,  his  easy  rowing. 
They  talked  of  the  library,  of  the  movies.  He  hummed  and 
she  softly  sang  "  Swing  Low,  Sweet  Chariot."  A  breeze 
shivered  across  the  agate  lake.  The  wrinkled  water  was  like 
armor  damascened  and  polished.  The  breeze  flowed  round  the 
boat  in  a  chill  current.  Carol  drew  the  collar  of  her  middy 
blouse  over  her  bare  throat. 

"  Getting  cold.    Afraid  we'll  have  to  go  back,"  she  said. 

"  Let's  not  go  back  to  them  yet.  They'll  be  cutting  up. 
Let's  keep  along  the  shore." 

"  But  you  enjoy  the  '  cutting  up!  '  Maud  and  you  had  a 
beautiful  time." 

"Why!  We  just  walked  on  the  shore  and  talked  about 
fishing!  " 

She  was  relieved,  and  apologetic  to  her  friend  Maud.  "  Of 
course.  I  was  joking." 

"I'll  tell  you!  Let's  land  here  and  sit  on  the  shore — that 
bunch  of  hazel-brush  will  shelter  us  from  the  wind — and  watch 
the  sunset.  It's  like  melted  lead.  Just  a  short  while!  We 
don't  want  to  go  back  and  listen  to  them!  " 

"No,  but "  She  said  nothing  while  he  sped  ashore. 

The  keel  clashed  on  the  stones.  He  stood  on  the  forward  seat, 
holding  out  his  hand.  They  were  alone,  in  the  ripple-lapping 
silence.  She  rose  slowly,  slowly  stepped  over  the  water  in  the 
bottom  of  the  old  boat.  She  took  his  hand  confidently.  Un- 
speaking  they  sat  on  a  bleached  log,  in  a  russet  twilight  which 
hinted  of  autumn.  Linden  leaves  fluttered  about  them. 

"  I  wish Are  you  cold  now?  "  he  whispered. 

"  A  little."    She  shivered.    But  it  was  not  with  cold. 

"I  wish  we  could  curl  up  in  the  leaves  there,  covered  all 
up,  and  lie  looking  out  at  the  dark." 

"  I  wish  we  could."  As  though  it  was  comfortably  under 
stood  that  he  did  not  mean  to  be  taken  seriously. 


MAIN    STREET  359 

"Like  what  all  the  poets  say — brown  nymph  and  faun." 

"  No.  I  can't  be  a  nymph  any  more.  Too  old Erik, 

am  I  old?  Am  I  faded  and  small- towny?  " 

"Why,  you're  the  youngest Your  eyes  are  like  a 

girl's.  They're  so — well,  I  mean,  like  you  believed  every 
thing.  Even  if  you  do  teach  me,  I  feel  a  thousand  years  older 
than  you,  instead  of  maybe  a  year  younger." 

"  Four  or  five  years  younger!  " 

"Anyway,  your  eyes  are  so  innocent  and  your  cheeks  so 

soft Damn  it,  it  makes  me  want  to  cry,  somehow,  you're 

so  defenseless;  and  I  want  to  protect  you  and There's 

nothing  to  protect  you  against!  " 

"  Arn  I  young?  Am  I?  Honestly?  Truly? "  She  be 
trayed  for  a  moment  the  childish,  mock-imploring  tone  that 
comes  into  the  voice  of  the  most  serious  woman  when  an 
agreeable  man  treats  her  as  a  girl;  the  childish  tone  and 
childish  pursed-up  lips  and  shy  lift  of  the  cheek. 

"Yes,  you  are!" 

"  You're  dear  to  believe  it,  Will— £n&/ " 

"  Will  you  play  with  me?    A  lot?  " 

"  Perhaps." 

"  Would  you  really  like  to  curl  in  the  leaves  and  watch  the 
stars  swing  by  overhead?  " 

"  I  think  it's  rather  better  to  be  sitting  here!  "  He  twined 
his  fingers  with  hers.  "And Erik,  we  must  go  back." 

"  Why?  " 

"  It's  somewhat  late  to  outline  all  the  history  of  social 
custom!  " 

"  I  know.    We  must.    Are  you  glad  we  ran  away  though?  " 

"  Yes."    She  was  quiet,  perfectly  simple.    But  she  rose. 

He  circled  her  waist  with  a  brusque  arm.  She  did  not  resist. 
She  did  not  care.  He  was  neither  a  peasant  tailor,  a  potential 
artist,  a  social  complication,  nor  a  peril.  He  was  himself,  and 
in  him,  in  the  personality  flowing  from  him,  she  was  unreason- 
ingly  content.  In  his  nearness  she  caught  a  new  view  of  his 
head;  the  last  light  brought  out  the  planes  of  his  neck,  his 
flat  ruddied  cheeks,  the  side  of  his  nose,  the  depression  of  his 
temples.  Not  as  coy  or  uneasy  lovers  but  as  companions  they 
walked  to  the  boat,  and  he  lifted  her  up  on  the  prow. 

She  began  to  talk  intently,  as  he  rowed:  "  Erik,  you've  got 
to  work!  You  ought  to  be  a  personage.  You're  robbed  of 
your  kingdom.  Fight  for  itl  Take  one  of  these  correspon- 


36o  MAIN   STREET 

dence  courses  in  drawing — they  mayn't  be  any  good  in  them 
selves,  but  they'll  make  you  try  to  draw  and " 

As  they  reached  the  picnic  ground  she  perceived  that  it  was 
dark,  that  they  had  been  gone  for  a  long  time. 

"  What  will  they  say?  "  she  wondered. 

The  others  greeted  them  with  the  inevitable  storm  of  humor 
and  slight  vexation:  "  Where  the  deuce  do  you  think  you've 
been?"  "You're  a.  fine  pair,  you  are!  "  Erik  and  Carol 
looked  self-conscious;  failed  in  their  effort  to  be  witty.  All  the 
way  home  Carol  was  embarrassed.  Once  Cy  winked  at  her. 
That  Cy,  the  Peeping  Tom  of  the  garage-loft,  should  consider 

her  a  fellow-sinner She  was  furious  and  frightened  and 

exultant  by  turns,  and  in  all  her  moods  certain  that  Kennicott 
would  read  her  adventuring  in  her  face. 

She  came  into  the  house  awkwardly  defiant. 

Her  husband,  half  asleep  under  the  lamp,  greeted  her,  "  Well, 
well,  have  nice  time?  " 

She  could  not  answer.  He  looked  at  her.  But  his  look 
did  not  sharpen.  He  began  to  wind  his  watch,  yawning  the  old 
"  Welllllll,  guess  it's  about  time  to  turn  in." 

That  was  all.  Yet  she  was  not  glad.  She  was  almost  disap 
pointed. 


n 

Mrs.  Bogart  called  next  day.  She  had  a  hen-like,  crumb- 
pecking,  diligent  appearance.  Her  smile  was  too  innocent.  The 
pecking  started  instantly: 

"  Cy  says  you  had  lots  of  fun  at  the  picnic  yesterday.  Did 
you  enjoy  it?  " 

"  Oh  yes.  I  raced  Cy  at  swimming.  He  beat  me  badly. 
He's  so  strong,  isn't  he!  " 

"Poor  boy,  just  crazy  to  get  into  the  war,  too,  but 

This  Erik  Valborg  was  along,  wa'n't  he?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  I  think  he's  an  awful  handsome  fellow,  and  they  say  he's 
smart.  Do  you  like  him?  " 

"  He  seems  very  polite." 

"  Cy  says  you  and  him  had  a  lovely  boat-ride.  My,  that 
must  have  been  pleasant." 

"  Yes,  except  that  I  couldn't  get  Mr.  Valborg  to  say  a  word. 
I  wanted  to  ask  him  about  the  suit  Mr.  Hicks  is  making  for 


MAIN   STREET  361 

my  husband.  But  he  insisted  on  singing.  Still,  it  was  restful, 
floating  around  on  the  water  and  singing.  So  happy  and  in 
nocent.  Don't  you  think  it's  a  shame,  Mrs.  Bogart,  that  people 
in  this  town  don't  do  more  nice  clean  things  like  that,  instead 
of  all  this  horrible  gossiping?  " 

"Yes.     .    .     .    Yes." 

Mrs.  Bogart  sounded  vacant.  Her  bonnet  was  awry;  she 
was  incomparably  dowdy.  Carol  stared  at  her,  felt  contemp 
tuous,  ready  at  last  to  rebel  against  the  trap,  and  as  the  rusty 
goodwife  fished  again,  "  Plannin'  some  more  picnics?  "  she 
flung  out,  "  I  haven't  the  slightest  ideal  Oh.  Is  that  Hugh 
crying?  I  must  run  up  to  him." 

But  up-stairs  she  remembered  that  Mrs.  Bogart  had  seen  her 
walking  with  Erik  from  the  railroad  track  into  town,  and  she 
was  chilly  with  disquietude. 

At  the  Jolly  Seventeen,  two  days  after,  she  was  effusive  to 
Maud  Dyer,  to  Juanita  Haydock.  She  fancied  that  every  one 
was  watching  her,  but  she  could  not  be  sure,  and  in  rare  strong 
moments  she  did  not  care.  She  could  rebel  against  the  town's 
prying  now  that  she  had  something,  however  indistinct,  for 
which  to  rebel. 

In  a  passionate  escape  there  must  be  not  only  a  place  from 
which  to  flee  but  a  place  to  which  to  flee.  She  had  known 
that  she  would  gladly  leave  Gopher  Prairie,  leave  Main  Street 
and  all  that  it  signified,  but  she  had  had  no  destination.  She 
had  one  now.  That  destination  was  not  Erik  Valborg  and  the 
love  of  Erik.  She  continued  to  assure  herself  that  she  wasn't 
in  love  with  him  but  merely  "  fond  of  him,  and  interested  in 
his  success."  Yet  in  him  she  had  discovered  both  her  need  of 
youth  and  the  fact  that  youth  would  welcome  her.  It  was  not 
Erik  to  whom  she  must  escape,  but  universal  and  joyous  youth, 
in  class-rooms,  in  studios,  in  offices,  in  meetings  to  protest 
against  Things  in  General.  .  .  .  But  universal  and  joyous 
youth  rather  resembled  Erik. 

All  week  she  thought  of  things  she  wished  to  say  to  him. 
High,  improving  things.  She  began  to  admit  that  she  was 
lonely  without  him.  Then  she  was  afraid. 

It  was  at  the  Baptist  church  supper,  a  week  after  the  picnic, 
that  she  saw  him  again.  She  had  gone  with  Kennicott  and 
Aunt  Bessie  to  the  supper,  which  was  spread  on  oilcloth* 
covered  and  trestle-supported  tables  in  the  church  basement. 
Erik  was  helping  Myrtle  Cass  to  fill  coffee  cups  for  the  wait> 


362  MAIN    STREET 

resses.  The  congregation  had  doffed  their  piety.  Children 
tumbled  under  the  tables,  and  Deacon  Pierson  greeted  the 
women  with  a  rolling,  "  Where's  Brother  Jones,  sister,  where's 
Brother  Jones?  Not  going  to  be  with  us  tonight?  Well, 
you  tell  Sister  Perry  to  hand  you  a  plate,  and  make  'em  give 
you  enough  oyster  pie!  " 

Erik  shared  in  the  cheerfulness.  He  laughed  with  Myrtle, 
jogged  her  elbow  when  she  was  filling  cups,  made  deep  mock 
bows  to  the  waitresses  as  they  came  up  for  coffee.  Myrtle 
was  enchanted  by  his  humor.  From  the  other  end  of  the  roonij 
a  matron  among  matrons,  Carol  observed  Myrtle,  and  hated 
her,  and  caught  herself  at  it.  "  To  be  jealous  of  a  wooden- 
faced  village  girl!  "  But  she  kept  it  up.  She  detested  Erik; 
gloated  over  his  gaucheries — his  "  breaks,"  she  called  them. 
When  he  was  too  expressive,  too  much  like  a  Russian  dancer, 
in  saluting  Deacon  Pierson,  Carol  had  the  ecstasy  of  pain  in 
seeing  the  deacon's  sneer.  When,  trying  to  talk  to  three  girls 
at  once,  he  dropped  a  cup  and  effeminately  wailed,  "  Oh  dear!  " 
she  sympathized  with — and  ached  over — the  insulting  secret 
glances  of  the  girls. 

From  meanly  hating  him  she  rose  to  compassion  as  she  saw 
that  his  eyes  begged  every  one  to  like  him.  She  perceived  how 
inaccurate  her  judgments  could  be.  At  the  picnic  she  had 
fancied  that  Maud  Dyer  looked  upon  Erik  too  sentimentally, 
and  she  had  snarled,  "  I  hate  these  married  women  who  cheapen 
themselves  and  feed  on  boys."  But  at  the  supper  Maud  was  one 
of  the  waitresses;  she  bustled  with  platters  of  cake,  she  was 
pleasant  to  old  women;  and  to  Erik  she  gave  no  attention  at  all. 
Indeed,  when  she  had  her  own  supper,  she  joined  the  Kenni- 
cotts,  and  how  ludicrous  it  was  to  suppose  that  Maud  was  a 
gourmet  of  emotions  Carol  saw  in  the  fact  that  she  talked 
not  to  one  of  the  town  beaux  but  to  the  safe  Kennicott  him 
self! 

When  Carol  glanced  at  Erik  again  she  discovered  that  Mrs. 
Bogart  had  an  eye  on  her.  It  was  a  shock  to  know  that  at  last 
there  was  something  which  could  make  her  afraid  of  Mrs. 
Bogart's  spying. 

"  What  am  I  doing?  Am  I  in  love  with  Erik?  Unfaithful? 
I?  I  want  youth  but  I  don't  want  him — I  mean,  I  don't  want 
youth — enough  to  break  up  my  life.  I  must  get  out  of  this. 
Quick." 

She  said  to  Kennicott  on  their  way  home,  "  Will!    I  want  to 


MAIN    STREET  363 

run  away  for  a  few  days.  Wouldn't  you  like  to  skip  down  to 
Chicago?  " 

"  Still  be  pretty  hot  there.  No  fun  in  a  big  city  till  winter. 
What  do  you  want  to  go  for?  " 

"  People!    To  occupy  my  mind.    I  want  stimulus." 

"  Stimulus?  "  He  spoke  good-naturedly.  "  Who's  been  feed 
ing  you  meat?  You  got  that '  stimulus  '  out  of  one  of  these  fool 
stories  about  wives  that  don't  know  when  they're  well  off. 
Stimulus!  Seriously,  though,  to  cut  out  the  jollying,  I  can't 
get  away." 

"  Then  why  don't  I  run  off  by  myself?  " 

"  Why 'Tisn't  the  money,  you  understand.  But  what 

about  Hugh?  " 

"  Leave  him  with  Aunt  Bessie.  It  would  be  just  for  a  few 
days." 

"  I  don't  think  much  of  this  business  of  leaving  kids  around. 
Bad  for  'em." 

"  So  you  don't  think " 

"  I'll  tell  you:  I  think  we  better  stay  put  till  after  the  war. 
Then  we'll  have  a  dandy  long  trip.  No,  I  don't  think  you 
better  plan  much  about  going  away  now." 

So  she  was  thrown  at  Erik. 


m 

She  awoke  at  ebb-time,  at  three  of  the  morning,  woke  sharply 
and  fully;  and  sharply  and  coldly  as  her  father  pronouncing 
sentence  on  a  cruel  swindler  she  gave  judgment: 

"  A  pitiful  and  tawdry  love-affair. 

"No  splendor,  no  defiance.  A  self-deceived  little  woman 
whispering  in  corners  with  a  pretentious  little  man. 

"  No,  he  is  not.  He  is  fine.  Aspiring.  It's  not  his  fault. 
His  eyes  are  sweet  when  he  looks  at  me.  Sweet,  so  sweet." 

She  pitied  herself  that  her  romance  should  be  pitiful;  she 
sighed  that  in  this  colorless  hour,  to  this  austere  self,  it  should 
seem  tawdry.  9 

Then,  in  a  very  great  desire  of  rebellion  and  unleashing  of  all 
her  hatreds,  "  The  pettier  and  more  tawdry  it  is,  the  more  blame 
to  Main  Street.  It  shows  how  much  I've  been  longing  to  escape. 
Any  way  out!  Any  humility  so  long  as  I  can  flee.  Main  Street 
has  done  this  to  me.  I  came  here  eager  for  nobilities,  ready  for 
work,  and  now Any  way  out. 


364  MAIN    STREET 

"  I  came  trusting  them.  They  beat  me  with  rods  of  dullness. 
They  don't  know,  they  don't  understand  how  agonizing  their 
complacent  dullness  is.  Like  ants  and  August  sun  on  a  wound. 

"Tawdry!  Pitiful!  Carol — the  clean  girl  that  used  to 
walk  so  fast! — sneaking  and  tittering  in  dark  corners,  being 
sentimental  and  jealous  at  church  suppers!  " 

At  breakfast-time  her  agonies  were  night-blurred,  and  per 
sisted  only  as  a  nervous  irresolution. 


IV 

Few  of  the  aristocrats  of  the  Jolly  Seventeen  attended  the 
humble  folk-meets  of  the  Baptist  and  Methodist  church  suppers, 
where  the  Willis  Wood  fords,  the  Dillons,  the  Champ  Perrys, 
Oleson  the  butcher,  Brad  Bemis  the  tinsmith,  and  Deacon  Pier- 
son  found  release  from  loneliness.  But  all  of  the  smart  set 
went  to  the  lawn-festivals  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  and  were 
reprovingly  polite  to  outsiders. 

The  Harry  Haydocks  gave  the  last  lawn- festival  of  the  sea  • 
son;  a  splendor  of  Japanese  lanterns  and  card-tables  and 
chicken  patties  and  Neapolitan  ice-cream.  Erik  was  no  longer 
entirely  an  outsider.  He  was  eating  his  ice-cream  with  a  group 
of  the  people  most  solidly  "  in  " — the  Dyers,  Myrtle  Cass,  Guy 
Pollock,  the  Jackson  Elders.  The  Haydocks  themselves  kept 
aloof,  but  the  others  tolerated  him.  He  would  never,  Carol 
fancied,  be  one  of  the  town  pillars,  because  he  was  not  ortho 
dox  in  hunting  and  motoring  and  poker.  But  he  was  winning 
approbation  by  his  liveliness,  his  gaiety — the  qualities  least 
important  in  him. 

When  the  group  summoned  Carol  she  made  several  very 
well-taken  points  in  regard  to  the  weather. 

Myrtle  cried  to  Erik,  "  Come  on!  We  don't  belong  with 
these  old  folks.  I  want  to  make  you  'quainted  with  the  jolliest 
girl,  she  comes  from  Wakamin,  she's  staying  with  Mary  How- 
land." 

Carol  saw  him  being  profuse  to  the  guest  from  Wakamin. 
She  saw  him  confidentially  strolling  with  Myrtle.  She  burst 
out  to  Mrs.  Westlakey  "  Valborg  and  Myrtle  seem  to  have  quite 
a  crush  on  each  other." 

Mrs.  Westlake  glanced  at  her  curiously  before  she  mumbled, 
"Yes,  don't  they." 

"  I'm  mad:  to  talk  this  way,"  Carol  worried. 


MAIN   STREET  365 

She  had  regained  a  feeling  of  social  virtue  by  telling  Juanita 
Haydock  "  how  darling  her  lawn  looked  with  the  Japanese 
lanterns  "  when  she  saw  that  Erik  was  stalking  her.  Though 
he  was  merely  ambling  about  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
though  he  did  not  peep  at  her,  she  knew  that  he  was  calling 
her.  She  sidled  away  from  Juanita.  Erik  hastened  to  her.  She 
nodded  coolly  (she  was  proud  of  her  coolness). 

"Carol!  I've  got  a  wonderful  chance!  Don't  know  but 
what  some  ways  it  might  be  better  than  going  East  to  take 

art.  Myrtle  Cass  says I  dropped  in  to  say  howdy  to 

Myrtle  last  evening,  and  had  quite  a  long  talk  with  her  father, 
and  he  said  he  was  hunting  for  a  fellow  to  go  to  work  in  the 
flour  mill  and  learn  the  whole  business,  and  maybe  become 
general  manager.  I  know  something  about  wheat  from  my 
farming,  and  I  worked  a  couple  of  months  in  the  flour  mill  at 
Curlew  when  I  got  sick  of  tailoring.  What  do  you  think?  You 
said  any  work  was  artistic  if  it  was  done  by  an  artist.  And 
flour  is  so  important.  What  do  you  think?  " 

"Wait!     Wait!" 

This  sensitive  boy  would  be  very  skilfully  stamped  into  con 
formity  by  Lyman  Cass  and  his  sallow  daughter;  but  did  she 
detest  the  plan  for  this  reason?  "  I  must  be  honest.  I  mustn't 
tamper  with  his  future  to  please  my  vanity."  But  she  had  no 
sure  vision.  She  turned  on  him: 

"  How  can  I  decide?  It's  up  to  you.  Do  you  want  to 
become  a  person  like  Lym  Cass,  or  do  you  want  to  become  a 
person  like — yes,  like  me!  Waitl  Don't  be  flattering.  Be 
honest.  This  is  important." 

"  I  know.  I  am  a  person  like  you  now  I  I  mean,  I  want  to 
rebel." 

"  Yes.    We're  alike,"  gravely. 

"  Only  I'm  not  sure  I  can  put  through  my  schemes.  I  really 
can't  draw  much.  I  guess  I  have  pretty  fair  taste  in  fabrics,  but 
since  I've  known  you  I  don't  like  to  think  about  fussing  with 
dress-designing.  But  as  a  miller,  I'd  have  the  means — books, 
piano,  travel." 

"  I'm  going  to  be  frank  and  beastly.  Don't  you  realize  that 
it  isn't  just  because  her  papa  needs  a  bright  young  man  in  the 
mill  that  Myrtle  is  amiable  to  you?  Can't  you  understand 
what  she'll  do  to  you  when  she  has  you,  when  she  sends  you  to 
church  and  makes  you  become  respectable?  " 

He  glared  at  her.    "  I  don't  know.    I  suppose  so." 


366  MAIN   STREET 

"You  are  thoroughly  unstable!  " 

"What  if  I  am?  Most  fish  out  of  water  are!  Don't  talk 
like  Mrs.  Bogart!  How  can  I  be  anything  but  'unstable* — 
wandering  from  farm  to  tailor  shop  to  books,  no  training, 
nothing  but  trying  to  make  books  talk  to  me!  Probably  I'll 
fail.  Oh,  I  know  it;  probably  I'm  uneven.  But  I'm  not  un 
stable  in  thinking  about  this  job  in  the  mill — and  Myrtle.  I 
know  what  I  want.  I  want  you!  " 

"  Please,  please,  oh,  please!  " 

"  I  do.  I'm  not  a  schoolboy  any  more.  I  want  you.  If 
I  take  Myrtle,  it's  to  forget  you." 

"  Please,  please!  " 

"  It's  you  that  are  unstable!  You  talk  at  things  and  play 
at  things,  but  you're  scared.  Would  I  mind  it  if  you  and  I 
went  off  to  poverty,  and  I  had  to  dig  ditches?  I  would  not! 
But  you  would.  I  think  you  would  come  to  like  me,  but  you 
won't  admit  it.  I  wouldn't  have  said  this,  but  when  you 

sneer  at  Myrtle  and  the  mill If  Fm  not  to  have  good 

sensible  things  like  those,  d'  you  think  I'll  be  content  with 
trying  to  become  a  damn  dressmaker,  after  you?  Are  you 
fair?  Are  you?  " 

"  No,  I  suppose  not." 

"  Do  you  like  me?    Do  you?  " 

"Yes No!     Please!     I  can't  talk  any  more." 

"  Not  here.    Mrs.  Haydock  is  looking  at  us." 

"No,  nor  anywhere.  O  Erik,  I  am  fond  of  you,  but  I'm 
afraid." 

"What  of?" 

"Of  Them!  Of  my  rulers— Gopher  Prairie.  ...  My 
dear  boy,  we  are  talking  very  foolishly.  I  am  a  normal  wife 
and  a  good  mother,  and  you  are — oh,  a  college  freshman." 

"You  do  like  me!     I'm  going  to  make  you  love  me!  " 

She  looked  at  him  once,  recklessly,  and  walked  away  with  a 
serene  gait  that  was  a  disordered  flight. 

Kennicott  grumbled  on  their  way  home,  "  You  and  this 
Valborg  fellow  seem  quite  chummy." 

"  Oh,  we  are.  He's  interested  in  Myrtle  Cass,  and  I  was 
telling  him  how  nice  she  is." 

In  her  room  she  marveled,  "  I  have  become  a  liar.  I'm 
snarled  with  lies  and  foggy  analyses  and  desires — I  who  was 
clear  and  sure." 

She  hurried  into  Kennicott's  room,  sat  on  the  edge  of  his 


MAIN   STREET  367 

bed.  He  flapped  a  drowsy  welcoming  hand  at  her  from  the 
expanse  of  quilt  and  dented  pillows. 

"Will,  I  really  think  I  ought  to  trot  off  to  St.  Paul  or 
Chicago  or  some  place." 

"I  thought  we  settled  all  that,  few  nights  ago!  Wait  till 
we  can  have  a  real  trip."  He  shook  himself  out  of  his 
drowsiness.  "  You  might  give  me  a  good-night  kiss." 

She  did — dutifully.  He  held  her  lips  against  his  for  an  intol 
erable  time.  "  Don't  you  like  the  old  man  any  more?  "  he 
coaxed.  He  sat  up  and  shyly  fitted  his  palm  about  the 
slimness  of  her  waist. 

"  Of  course.  I  like  you  very  much  indeed."  Even  to  her 
self  it  sounded  flat.  She  longed  to  be  able  to  throw  into  her 
voice  the  facile  passion  of  a  light  woman.  She  patted  his  cheek. 

He  sighed,  "  I'm  sorry  you're  so  tired.  Seems  like 

But  of  course  you  aren't  very  strong." 

"  Yes.  .  .  .  Then  you  don't  think — you're  quite  sure  I 
ought  to  stay  here  in  town?  " 

"I  told  you  so!     I  certainly  do!  " 

She  crept  back  to  her  room,  a  small  timorous  figure  in  white. 

"I  can't  face  Will  down — demand  the  right.  He'd  be 
Dbstinate.  And  I  can't  even  go  off  and  earn  my  living  again. 

Out  of  the  habit  of  it.  He's  driving  me I'm  afraid  of 

what  he's  driving  me  to.  Afraid. 

"That  man  in  there,  snoring  in  stale  air,  my  husband? 
Could  any  ceremony  make  him  my  husband? 

"  No.  I  don't  want  to  hurt  him.,  I  want  to  love  him.  I 
can't,  when  I'm  thinking  of  Erik.  Am  I  too  honest — a  funny 
topsy-turvy  honesty — the  faithfulness  of  unfaith?  I  wish  I 
had  a  more  compartmental  mind,  like  men.  I'm  too  monoga 
mous — toward  Erik! — my  child  Erik,  who  needs  me. 

"  Is  an  illicit  affair  like  a  gambling  debt — demands  stricter 
honor  than  the  legitimate  debt  of  matrimony,  because  it's  not 
legally  enforced? 

"That's  nonsense!  I  don't  care  in  the  least  for  Erik! 
Not  for  any  man.  I  want  to  be  let  alone,  in  a  woman  world — 
a  world  without  Main  Street,  or  politicians,  or  business  men, 
or  men  with  that  sudden  beastly  hungry  look,  that  glistening 
unfrank  expression  that  wives  know 

"  If  Erik  were  here,  if  he  would  just  sit  quiet  and  kind  and 
talk,  I  could  be  still,  I  could  go  to  sleep. 

"  I  am  so  tired.    If  I  could  sleep w 


CHAPTER  XXXI 


THEIR  night  came  unheralded. 

Kennicott  was  on  a  country  call.  It  was  cool  but  Carol 
huddled  on  the  porch,  rocking,  meditating,  rocking.  The  house 
was  lonely  and  repellent,  and  though  she  sighed,  "  I  ought 
to  go  in  and  read — so  many  things  to  read — ought  to  go  in,"  she 
remained.  Suddenly  Erik  was  coming,  turning  in,  swinging 
open  the  screen  door,  touching  her  hand. 

"  Erik!  " 

"  Saw  your  husband  driving  out  of  town.  Couldn't  stand 
it." 

"Well You  mustn't  stay  more  than  five  minutes.'' 

"  Couldn't  stand  not  seeing  you.  Every  day,  towards  eve 
ning,  felt  I  had  to  see  you — pictured  you  so  clear.  I've  been 
good  though,  staying  away,  haven't  I!  " 

"  And  you  must  go  on  being  good." 

"Why  must  I?" 

"We  better  not  stay  here  on  the  porch.  The  Rowlands 
across  the  street  are  such  window-peepers,  and  Mrs.  Bo- 
gart " 

She  did  not  look  at  him  but  she  could  divine  his  tremulous- 
;iess  as  he  stumbled  indoors.  A  moment  ago  the  night  had  been 
coldly  empty;  now  it  was  incalculable,  hot,  treacherous.  But 
it  is  women  who  are  the  calm  realists  once  they  discard  the 
fetishes  of  the  premarital  hunt.  Carol  was  serene  as  she 
murmured,  "  Hungry?  I  have  some  little  honey-colored  cakes. 
You  may  have  two,  and  then  you  must  skip  home." 

"  Take  me  up  and  let  me  see  Hugh  asleep." 

"  I  don't  believe " 

"Just  a  glimpse!  " 

«  Well " 

She  doubtfully  led  the  way  to  the  ballroom-nursery.  Their 
heads  close,  Erik's  curls  pleasant  as  they  touched  her  cheek, 
they  looked  in  at  the  baby.  Hugh  was  pink  with  slumber. 
He  had  burrowed  into  his  pillow  with  such  energy  that  it 

368 


MAIN    STREET  369 

was  almost  smothering  him.  Beside  it  was  a  celluloid 
rhinoceros;  tight  in  his  hand  a  torn  picture  of  Old  King 
Cole. 

"Shhh!  "  said  Carol,  quite  automatically.  She  tiptoed  in 
to  pat  the  pillow.  As  she  returned  to  Erik  she  had  a  friendly 
sense  of  his  waiting  for  her.  They  smiled  at  each  other.  She 
did  not  think  of  Kennicott,  the  baby's  father.  What  she  did 
think  was  that  some  one  rather  like  Erik,  an  older  and  surer 
Erik,  ought  to  be  Hugh's  father.  The  three  of  them  would 
play — incredible  imaginative  games. 

"  Carol !  You Ve  told  me  about  your  own  room.  Let  me 
peep  in  at  it." 

"  But  you  mustn't  stay,  not  a  second.  We  must  go  down 
stairs." 

"  Yes." 

"  Will  you  be  good?  " 

"  R-reasonably!  "    He  was  pale,  large-eyed,  serious. 

"You've  got  to  be  more  than  reasonably  good!  "  She  felt 
sensible  and  superior;  she  was  energetic  about  pushing  open 
the  door. 

Kennicott  had  always  seemed  out  of  place  there  but  Erik 
surprisingly  harmonized  with  the  spirit  of  the  room  as  he 
stroked  the  books,  glanced  at  the  prints.  He  held  out  his 
hands.  He  came  toward  her.  She  was  weak,  betrayed  to  a 
warm  softness.  Her  head  was  tilted  back.  Her  eyes  were 
closed.  Her  thoughts  were  formless  but  many-colored.  She 
felt  his  kiss,  diffident  and  reverent,  on  her  eyelid. 

Then  she  knew  that  it  was  impossible. 

She  shook  herself.  She  sprang  from  him.  "Please!  "  she 
said  sharply. 

He  looked  at  her  unyielding. 

"I  am  fond  of  you,"  she  said.  "Don't  spoil  everything. 
Be  my  friend." 

"  How  many  thousands  and  millions  of  women  must  have 
said  that!  And  now  you!  And  it  doesn't  spoil  everything. 
It  glorifies  everything." 

"  Dear,  I  do  think  there's  a  tiny  streak  of  fairy  in  you — 
whatever  you  do  with  it.  Perhaps  I'd  have  loved  that  once. 
But  I  won't.  It's  too  late.  But  I'll  keep  a  fondness  for  you. 
Impersonal — I  will  be  impersonal!  It  needn't  be  just  a  thin 
talky  fondness.  You  do  need  me,  don't  you?  Only  you  and 
my  son  need  me.  I've  wanted  so  to  be  wanted!  Once  I 


370  MAIN    STREET 

wanted  love  to  be  given  to  me.  Now  I'll  be  content  if  I  can 
give.  .  .  .  Almost  content! 

"  We  women,  we  like  to  do  things  for  men.  Poor  men! 
We  swoop  on  you  when  you're  defenseless  and  fuss  over  you 
and  insist  on  reforming  you.  But  it's  so  pitifully  deep  in  us. 
You'll  be  the  one  thing  in  which  I  haven't  failed.  Do  some 
thing  definite!  Even  if  it's  just  selling  cottons.  Sell  beautiful 
cottons — caravans  from  China " 

"  Carol!     Stop!     You  do  love  me!  " 

"  I  do  not!  It's  just Can't  you  understand?  Every 
thing  crushes  in  on  me  so,  all  the  gaping  dull  people,  and  I  look 

for  a  way  out Please  go.  I  can't  stand  any  more. 

Please!  " 

He  was  gone.  And  she  was  not  relieved  by  the  quiet  of  the 
house.  She  was  empty  and  the  house  was  empty  and  she 
needed  him.  She  wanted  to  go  on  talking,  to  get  this  threshed 
out,  to  build  a  sane  friendship.  She  wavered  down  to  the 
living-room,  looked  out  of  the  bay-window.  He  was  not  to 
be  seen.  But  Mrs.  Westlake  was.  She  was  walking  past,  and 
in  the  light  from  the  corner  arc-lamp  she  quickly  inspected 
the  porch,  the  windows.  Carol  dropped  the  curtain,  stood  with 
movement  and  reflection  paralyzed.  Automatically,  without 
reasoning,  she  mumbled,  "  I  will  see  him  again  soon  and  make 

him  understand  we  must  be  friends.  But The  house  is 

so  empty.  It  echoes  so." 


n 

Kennicott  had  seemed  nervous  and  absent-minded  through 
that  supper-hour,  two  evenings  after.  He  prowled  about  the 
living-room,  then  growled: 

"  What  the  dickens  have  you  been  saying  to  Ma  Westlake?  " 
Carol's  book  rattled.    "  What  do  you  mean?  " 
"  I  told  you  that  Westlake  and  his  wife  were  jealous  of  us, 

and  here  you  been  chumming  up  to  them  and From  what 

Dave  tells  me,  Ma  Westlake  has  been  going  around  town  saying 
you  told  her  that  you  hate  Aunt  Bessie,  and  that  you  fixed 
up  your  own  room  because  I  snore,  and  you  said  Bjornstam 
was  too  good  for  Bea,  and  then,  just  recent,  that  you  were 
sore  on  the  town  because  we  don't  all  go  down  on  our  knees 
and  beg  this  Valborg  fellow  to  come  take  supper  with  us.  God 
only  knows  what  else  she  says  you  said." 


MAIN   STREET  3^73 

"It's  not  true,  any  of  it!  I  did  like  Mrs.  Westlake,  and 
I've  called  on  her,  and  apparently  she's  gone  and  twisted 
everything  I've  said " 

"  Sure.  Of  course  she  would.  Didn't  I  tell  you  she  would? 
She's  an  old  cat,  like  her  pussyfooting,  hand-holding  husband. 
Lord,  if  I  was  sick,  I'd  rather  have  a  faith-healer  than  Westlake, 
and  she's  another  slice  off  the  same  bacon.  What  I  can't 
understand  though " 

She  waited,  taut. 

" is  whatever  possessed  you  to  let  her  pump  you,  bright 

a  girl  as  you  are.  I  don't  care  what  you  told  her — we  all  get 
peeved  sometimes  and  want  to  blow  off  steam,  that's  natural — 
but  if  you  wanted  to  keep  it  dark,  why  didn't  you  advertise 
it  in  the  Dauntless,  or  get  a  megaphone  and  stand  on  top  of 
the  hotel  and  holler,  or  do  anything  besides  spill  it  to  her!  " 

"  I  know.  You  told  me.  But  she  was  so  motherly.  And 

I  didn't  have  any  woman Vida  's  become  so  married  and 

proprietary." 

"  Well,  next  time  you'll  have  better  sense." 

He  patted  her  head,  flumped  down  behind  his  newspaper, 
said  nothing  more. 

Enemies  leered  through  the  windows,  stole  on  her  from 
the  hall.  She  had  no  one  save  Erik.  This  kind  good  man 
Kennicott — he  was  an  elder  brother.  It  was  Erik,  her  fellow 
outcast,  to  whom  she  wanted  to  run  for  sanctuary.  Through 
her  storm  she  was,  to  the  eye,  sitting  quietly  with  her  fingers 
between  the  pages  of  a  baby-blue  book  on  home-dressmaking. 
But  her  dismay  at  Mrs.  Westlake's  treachery  had  risen  to 
active  dread.  What  had  the  woman  said  of  her  and  Erik? 
What  did  she  know?  What  had  she  seen?  Who  else  would 
join  in  the  baying  hunt?  Who  else  had  seen  her  with  Erik? 
What  had  she  to  fear  from  the  Dyers,  Cy  Bogart,  Juanita, 
Aunt  Bessie?  What  precisely  had  she  answered  to  Mrs. 
Bogart 's  questioning? 

All  next  day  she  was  too  restless  to  stay  home,  yet  as  she 
walked  the  streets  on  fictitious  errands  she  was  afraid  of  every 
person  she  met.  She  waited  for  them  to  speak;  waited  with 
foreboding.  She  repeated,  "  I  mustn't  ever  see  Erik  again." 
But  the  words  did  not  register.  She  had  no  ecstatic  indulgence 
in  the  sense  of  guilt  which  is,  to  the  women  of  Main  Street, 
the  surest  escape  from  blank  tediousness. 

At  five,  crumpled  in  a  chair  in  the  living-room,  she  started 


2  MAIN   STREET 

at  the  sound  of  the  bell.  Some  one  opened  the  door.  She 
waited,  uneasy.  Vida  Sherwin  charged  into  the  room.  "  Here's 
the  one  person  I  can  trust!  "  Carol  rejoiced. 

Vida  was  serious  but  affectionate.  She  bustled  at  Carol 
with,  "  Oh,  there  you  are,  dearie,  so  glad  t'  find  you  in,  sit 
down,  want  to  talk  to  you." 

Carol  sat,  obedient. 

Vida  fussily  tugged  over  a  large  chair  and  launched  out: 

"I've  been  hearing  vague  rumors  you  were  interested  in 
this  Erik  Valborg.  I  knew  you  couldn't  be  guilty,  and  I'm 
surer  than  ever  of  it  now.  Here  we  are,  as  blooming  as  a 
daisy." 

"  How  does  a  respectable  matron  look  when  she  feels 
guilty?  " 

Carol  sounded  resentful. 

"  Why Oh,  it  would  show!    Besides!    I  know  that  you, 

of  all  people,  are  the  one  that  can  appreciate  Dr.  Will." 

"  What  have  you  been  hearing?  " 

"  Nothing,  really.  I  just  heard  Mrs.  Bogart  say  she'd  seen 
you  and  Valborg  walking  together  a  lot."  Vida's  chirping 

slackened.     She  looked  at  her  nails.     "  But I  suspect 

you  do  like  Valborg.  Oh,  I  don't  mean  in  any  wrong  way. 
But  you're  young;  you  don't  know  what  an  innocent  liking 
might  drift  into.  You  always  pretend  to  be  so  sophisticated 
and  all,  but  you're  a  baby.  Just  because  you  are  so  innocent, 
you  don't  know  what  evil  thoughts  may  lurk  in  that  fellow's 
brain." 

"  You  don't  suppose  Valborg  could  actually  think  about 
making  love  to  me?  " 

Her  rather  cheap  sport  ended  abruptly  as  Vida  cried,  with 
contorted  face,  "  What  do  you  know  about  the  thoughts  in 
hearts?  You  just  play  at  reforming  the  world.  You  don't 
know  what  it  means  to  suffer." 

There  are  two  insults  which  no  human  being  will  endure: 
the  assertion  that  he  hasn't  a  sense  of  humor,  and  the  doubly 
impertinent  assertion  that  he  has  never  known  trouble.  Carol 
said  furiously,  "  You  think  I  don't  suffer?  You  think  I've 
always  had  an  easy " 

"  No,  you  don't.  I'm  going  to  tell  you  something  I've 
never  told  a  living  soul,  not  even  Ray."  The  dam  of  repressed 
imagination  which  Vida  had  builded  for  years,  which  now, 
with  Raymie  off  at  the  wars,  she  was  building  again,  gave  way. 


MAIN   STREET  373 

"  I  was — I  liked  Will  terribly  well.  One  time  at  a  party — oh, 
before  he  met  you,  of  course — but  we  held  hands,  and  we  were 
so  happy.  But  I  didn't  feel  I  was  really  suited  to  him.  I  let 
him  go.  Please  don't  think  I  still  love  him!  I  see  now  that 
Ray  was  predestined  to  be  my  mate.  But  because  I  liked  him, 
I  know  how  sincere  and  pure  and  noble  Will  is,  and  his 

thoughts  never  straying  from  the  path  of  rectitude,  and 

If  I  gave  him  up  to  you,  at  least  you've  got  to  appreciate  him! 
We  danced  together  and  laughed  so,  and  I  gave  him  up, 

but This  is  my  affair!  I'm  not  intruding!  I  see  the 

whole  thing  as  he  does,  because  of  all  I've  told  you.  Maybe 
it's  shameless  to  bare  my  heart  this  way,  but  I  do  it  for  him — 
for  him  and  you!  " 

Carol  understood  that  Vida  believed  herself  to  have  recited 
minutely  and  brazenly  a  story  of  intimate  love;  understood 
that,  in  alarm,  she  was  trying  to  cover  her  shame  as  she 
struggled  on,  "  Liked  him  in  the  most  honorable  way — simply 

can't  help  it  if  I  still  see  things  through  his  eyes If  I 

gave  him  up,  I  certainly  am  not  beyond  my  rights  in  demanding 
that  you  take  care  to  avoid  even  thy  appearance  of  evil 
and "  She  was  weeping;  an  insignificant,  flushed,  ungrace 
fully  weeping  woman. 

Carol  could  not  endure  it.  She  ran  to  Vida,  kissed  her 
forehead,  comforted  her  with  a  murmur  of  dove-like  sounds, 
sought  to  reassure  her  with  worn  and  hastily  assembled  gifts 
of  words:  "Oh,  I  appreciate  it  so  much,"  and  "You  are  so 
fine  and  splendid,"  and  "  Let  me  assure  you  there  isn't  a  thing 
to  what  you've  heard,"  and  "  Oh,  indeed,  I  do  know  how 
sincere  Will  is,  and  as  you  say,  so — so  sincere." 

Vida  believed  that  she  had  explained  many  deep  and  devious 
matters.  She  came  out  of  her  hysteria  like  a  sparrow  shaking 
off  rain-drops.  She  sat  up,  and  took  advantage  of  her  victory: 

"I  don't  want  to  rub  it  in,  but  you  can  see  for  yourself 
now,  this  is  all  a  result  of  your  being  so  discontented  and 
not  appreciating  the  dear  good  people  here.  And  another 
thing:  People  like  you  and  me,  who  want  to  reform  things, 
have  to  be  particularly  careful  about  appearances.  Think 
how  much  better  you  can  criticize  conventional  customs  if  you 
yourself  live  up  to  them,  scrupulously.  Then  people  can't 
say  you're  attacking  them  to  excuse  your  own  infractions." 

To  Carol  was  given  a  sudden  great  philosophical  under 
standing,  an  explanation  of  half  the  cautious  reforms  in  his- 


374  MAIN   STREET 

tory.  "  Yes.  I've  heard  that  plea.  It's  a  good  one.  It  sets 
revolts  aside  to  cool.  It  keeps  strays  in  the  flock.  To  word 
it  differently:  '  You  must  live  up  to  the  popular  code  if  you 
believe  in  it;  but  if  you  don't  believe  in  it,  then  you  must  live 
up  to  it!  ' 

"  I  don't  think  so  at  all,"  said  Vida  vaguely.    She  began  to 
look  hurt,  and  Carol  let  her  be  oracular. 


in 

Vida  had  done  her  a  service;  had  made  all  agonizing  seem 
so  fatuous  that  she  ceased  writhing  and  saw  that  her  whole 
problem  was  simple  as  mutton:  she  was  interested  in  Erik's 
aspiration;  interest  gave  her  a  hesitating  fondness  for  him; 
and  the  future  would  take  care  of  the  event.  .  .  .  But 
at  night,  thinking  in  bed,  she  protested,  "  I'm  not  a  falsely 
accused  innocent,  though!  If  it  were  some  one  more  resolute 

than  Erik,  a  fighter,  an  artist  with  bearded  surly  lips 

They're  only  in  books.  Is  that  the  real  tragedy,  that  I  never 
shall  know  tragedy,  never  find  anything  but  blustery  com 
plications  that  turn  out  to  be  a  farce? 

"No  one  big  enough  or  pitiful   enough  to  sacrifice  for 
Tragedy  in  neat  blouses;  the  eternal  flame  all  nice  and  safe 
in  a  kerosene  stove.     Neither  heroic  faith  nor  heroic  guilt. 
Peeping  at  love  from  behind  lace  curtains — on  Main  Street!  '* 

Aunt  Bessie  crept  in  next  day,  tried  to  pump  her,  tried  to 
prime  the  pump  by  again  hinting  that  Kennicott  might  have 
his  own  affairs.  Carol  snapped,  "Whatever  I  may  do,  I'll 
have  you  to  understand  that  Will  is  only  too  safe!  "  She 
wished  afterward  that  she  had  not  been  so  lofty.  How  much 
would  Aunt  Bessie  make  of  "  Whatever  I  may  do?  " 

When  Kennicott  came  home  he  poked  at  things,  and  hemmed, 
and  brought  out,  "  Saw  aunty,  this  afternoon.  She  said  you 
weren't  very  polite  to  her." 

Carol  laughed.  He  looked  at  her  in  a  puzzled  way  and 
fled  to  his  newspaper. 

IV 

She  lay  sleepless.  She  alternately  considered  ways  of  leaving 
Kennicott,  and  remembered  his  virtues,  pitied  his  bewilderment 
in  face  of  the  subtle  corroding  sicknesses  which  he  could  not 


MAIN    STREET  375 

dose  nor  cut  out.  Didn't  he  perhaps  need  her  more  than  did 
the  book-solaced  Erik?  Suppose  Will  were  to  die,  suddenly, 
Suppose  she  never  again  saw  him  at  breakfast,  silent  but 
amiable,  listening  to  her  chatter.  Suppose  he  never  again 
played  elephant  for  Hugh.  Suppose—  A  country  call,  a 
slippery  road,  his  motor  skidding,  the  edge  of  the  road  crum 
bling,  the  car  turning  turtle,  Will  pinned  beneath,  suffering, 
brought  home  maimed,  looking  at  her  with  spaniel  eyes — or 
waiting  for  her,  calling  for  her,  while  she  was  in  Chicago, 
knowing  nothing  of  it.  Suppose  he  were  sued  by  some  vicious 
shrieking  woman  for  malpractice.  He  tried  to  get  witnesses; 
Westlake  spread  lies;  his  friends  doubted  him;  his  self- 
confidence  was  so  broken  that  it  was  horrible  to  see  the  in 
decision  of  the  decisive  man;  he  was  convicted,  handcuffed, 

taken  on  a  train 

She  ran  to  his  room.  At  her  nervous  push  the  door  swung 
sharply  in,  struck  a  chair.  He  awoke,  gasped,  then  in  a 
steady  voice:  "What  is  it,  dear?  Anything  wrong?"  She 
darted  to  him,  fumbled  for  the  familiar  harsh  bristly  cheek. 
How  well  she  knew  it,  every  seam,  and  hardness  of  bone,  and 
roll  of  fat!  Yet  when  he  sighed,  "  This  is  a  nice  visit,"  and 
dropped  his  hand  on  her  thin-covered  shoulder,  she  said,  too 
cheerily,  "  I  thought  I  heard  you  moaning.  So  silly  of  me. 
Good  night,  dear." 


She  did  not  see  Erik  for  a  fortnight,  save  once  at  church 
and  once  when  she  went  to  the  tailor  shop  to  talk  over  the 
plans,  contingencies,  and  strategy  of  Kennicott's  annual  cam 
paign  for  getting  a  new  suit.  Nat  Hicks  was  there,  and  he 
was  not  so  deferential  as  he  had  been.  With  unnecessary 
jauntiness  he  chuckled,  "  Some  nice  flannels,  them  samples, 
heh?  "  Needlessly  he  touched  her  arm  to  call  attention  to  the 
fashion-plates,  and  humorously  he  glanced  from  her  to  Erik. 
At  home  she  wondered  if  the  little  beast  might  not  be  sug 
gesting  himself  as  a  rival  to  Erik,  but  that  abysmal  be- 
dragglement  she  would  not  consider. 

She  saw  Juanita  Haydock  slowly  walking  past  the  house- 
as  Mrs.  Westlake  had  once  walked  past. 

She  met  Mrs.  Westlake  in  Uncle  Whittier's  store,  and  before 
that  alert  stare  forgot  her  determination  to  be  rude,  and  was 
shakily  cordial. 


376  MAIN    STREET 

She  was  sure  that  all  the  men  on  the  street,  even  Guy 
Pollock  and  Sam  Clark,  leered  at  her  in  an  interested  hopeful 
way,  as  though  she  were  a  notorious  divorcee.  She  felt  as 
insecure  as  a  shadowed  criminal.  She  wished  to  see  Erik,  and 
wished  that  she  had  never  seen  him.  She  fancied  that  Kenn> 
cott  was  the  only  person  in  town  who  did  not  know  all — 
know  incomparably  more  than  there  was  to  know — about  her 
self  and  Erik.  She  crouched  in  her  chair  as  she  imagined  men 
talking  of  her,  thick-voiced,  obscene,  in  barber  shops  and  the 
tobacco-stinking  pool  parlor. 

Through  early  autumn  Fern  Mullins  was  the  only  person 
who  broke  the  suspense.  The  frivolous  teacher  had  come  to 
accept  Carol  as  of  her  own  youth,  and  though  school  had 
begun  she  rushed  in  daily  to  suggest  dances,  welsh-rabbit 
parties. 

Fern  begged  her  to  go  as  chaperon  to  a  barn-dance  in  the 
country,  on  a  Saturday  evening.  Carol  could  not  go.  The 
next  day,  the  storm  crashed- 


CHAPTER  XXXII 


CAKOL  was  on  the  back  porch,  tightening  a  bolt  on  the  baby's 
go-cart,  this  Sunday  afternoon.  Through  an  open  window  of 
the  Bogart  house  she  heard  a  screeching,  heard  Mrs.  Bogart's 
haggish  voice: 

"...  did  too,  and  there's  no  use  your  denying  it 
.  .  .  no  you  don't,  you  march  yourself  right  straight  out 
of  the  house  .  .  .  never  in  my  life  heard  of  such  .  .  . 
never  had  nobody  talk  to  me  like  .  .  .  walk  in  the  ways 
of  sin  and  nastiness  .  .  .  leave  your  clothes  here,  and 
heaven  knows  that's  more  than  you  deserve  .  .  .  any  of 
your  lip  or  I'll  call  the  policeman." 

The  voice  of  the  other  interlocutor  Carol  did  not  catch, 
nor,  though  Mrs.  Bogart  was  proclaiming  that  he  was  her  con 
fidant  and  present  assistant,  did  she  catch  the  voice  of  Mrs. 
Bogart's  God. 

"  Another  row  with  Cy,"  Carol  inferred. 

She  trundled  the  go-cart  down  the  back  steps  and  tentatively 
wheeled  it  across  the  yard,  proud  of  her  repairs.  She  heard 
steps  on  the  sidewalk.  She  saw  not  Cy  Bogart  but  Fern 
Mullins,  carrying  a  suit-case,  hurrying  up  the  street  with  her 
head  low.  The  widow,  standing  on  the  porch  with  buttery 
arms  akimbo,  yammered  after  the  fleeing  girl: 

"And  don't  you  dare  show  your  face  on  this  block  again. 
You  can  send  the  drayman  for  your  trunk.  My  house  has 
been  contaminated  long  enough.  Why  the  Lord  should  afflict 
me » 

Fern  was  gone.  The  righteous  widow  glared,  banged  into 
the  house,  came  out  poking  at  her  bonnet,  marched  away. 
By  this  time  Carol  was  staring  in  a  manner  not  visibly  to  be 
distinguished  from  the  window-peeping  of  the  rest  of  Gopher 
Prairie.  She  saw  Mrs.  Bogart  enter  the  Rowland  house,  then 
the  Casses'.  Not  till  suppertime  did  she  reach  the  Kennicotts. 
The  doctor  answered  her  ring,  and  greeted  her,  "Well,  well, 
how's  the  good  neighbor?  " 

377 


378  MAIN   STREET 

The  good  neighbor  charged  into  the  living-room,  waving  the 
most  unctuous  of  black  kid  gloves  and  delightedly  sputtering: 

"  You  may  well  ask  how  I  am !  I  really  do  wonder  how  I 
could  go  through  the  awful  scenes  of  this  day — and  the  im 
pudence  I  took  from  that  woman's  tongue,  that  ought  to  be 
cut  out " 

"Whoa!  Whoa!  Hold  up!  "  roared  Kennicott.  "Who's 
the  hussy,  Sister  Bogart?  Sit  down  and  take  it  cool  and  tell 
us  about  it." 

"  I  can't  sit  down,  I  must  hurry  home,  but  I  couldn't  devote 
myself  to  my  own  selfish  cares  till  I'd  warned  you,  and  heaven 
knows  I  don't  expect  any  thanks  for  trying  to  warn  the  town 
against  her,  there's  always  so  much  evil  in  the  world  that  folks 
simply  won't  see  or  appreciate  your  trying  to  safeguard 

them And  forcing  herself  in  here  to  get  in  with  you  and 

Carrie,  many  's  the  time  I've  seen  her  doing  it,  and,  thank 
heaven,  she  was  found  out  in  time  before  she  could  do  any 
more  harm,  it  simply  breaks  my  heart  and  prostrates  me  to 
think  what  she  may  have  done  already,  even  if  some  of  us 
that  understand  and  know  about  things " 

"Whoa-up!     Who  are  you  talking  about?" 

"She's  talking  about  Fern  Mullins,"  Carol  put  in,  not 
pleasantly. 

"  Huh?  " 

Kennicott  was  incredulous. 

}  "I  certainly  am!  "  flourished  Mrs.  Bogart,  "and  good  and 
/thankful  you  may  be  that  I  found  her  out  in  time,  before  she 
/could  get  you  into  something,  Carol;  because  even  if  you  are 
;  my  neighbor  and  Will's  wife  and  a  cultured  lady,  let  me  tell 
you  right  now,  Carol  Kennicott,  that  you  ain't  always  as 
respectful  to — you  ain't  as  reverent — you  don't  stick  by  the 
good  old  ways  like  they  was  laid  down  for  us  by  God  in  the 
Bible,  and  while  of  course  there  ain't  a  bit  of  harm  in  having 
a  good  laugh,  and  I  know  there  ain't  any  real  wickedness  in 
you,  yet  just  the  same  you  don't  fear  God  and  hate  the  trans 
gressors  of  his  commandments  like  you  ought  to,  and  you  may 
be  thankful  I  found  out  this  serpent  I  nourished  in  my  bosom 
— and  oh  yes!  oh  yes  indeed!  my  lady  must  have  two  eggs 
every  morning  for  breakfast,  and  eggs  sixty  cents  a  dozen, 
and  wa'n't  satisfied  with  one,  like  most  folks — what  did  she 
care  how  much  they  cost  or  if  a  person  couldn't  make  hardly 
nothing  on  her  board  and  room,  in  fact  I  just  took  her  in  out 


MAIN   STREET  379 

of  charity  and  I  might  have  known  from  the  kind  of  stockings 
and  clothes  that  she  sneaked  into  my  house  in  her  trunk " 

Before  they  got  her  story  she  had  five  more  minutes  of 
obscene  wallowing.  The  gutter  comedy  turned  into  high 
tragedy,  with  Nemesis  in  black  kid  gloves.  The  actual  story 
was  simple,  depressing,  and  unimportant.  As  to  details  Mrs, 
Bogart  was  indefinite,  and  angry  that  she  should  be  ques^ 
tioned. 

Fern  Mullins  and  Cy  had,  the  evening  before,  driven  alone 
to  a  barn-dance  in  the  country.  (Carol  brought  out  the  ad 
mission  that  Fern  had  tried  to  get  a  chaperon.)  At  the  dance 
Cy  had  kissed  Fern — she  confessed  that.  Cy  had  obtained  a 
pint  of  whisky ;  he  said  that  he  didn't  remember  where  he  had 
got  it;  Mrs.  Bogart  implied  that  Fern  had  given  it  to  him;  Fern 
herself  insisted  that  he  had  stolen  it  from  a  farmer's  over 
coat — which,  Mrs.  Bogart  raged,  was  obviously  a  lie.  He  had 
become  soggily  drunk.  Fern  had  driven  him  home;  deposited 
him,  retching  and  wabbling,  on  the  Bogart  porch. 

Never  before  had  her  boy  been  drunk,  shrieked  Mrs.  Bogart. 
When  Kennicott  grunted,  she  owned,  "Well,  maybe  once  or 
twice  I've  smelled  licker  on  his  breath."  She  also,  with  an 
air  of  being  only  too  scrupulously  exact,  granted  that  some 
times  he  did  not  come  home  till  morning.  But  he  couldn't 
ever  have  been  drunk,  for  he  always  had  the  best  excuses: 
the  other  boys  had  tempted  him  to  go  down  the  lake  spearing 
pickerel  by  torchlight,  or  he  had  been  out  in  a  "  machine  that 
ran  out  of  gas."  Anyway,  never  before  had  her  boy  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  a  "  designing  woman." 

"  What  do  you  suppose  Miss  Mullins  could  design  to  do  with 
him?  "  insisted  Carol. 

Mrs.  Bogart  was  puzzled,  gave  it  up,  went  on.  This  morning, 
when  she  had  faced  both  of  them,  Cy  had  manfully  confessed 
that  all  of  the  blame  was  on  Fern,  because  the  teacher — his 
own  teacher — had  dared  him  to  take  a  drink.  Fern  had  tried 
to  deny  it. 

"  Then,"  gabbled  Mrs.  Bogart,  "  then  that  woman  had  the 
impudence  to  say  to  me,  *  What  purpose  could  I  have  in  want 
ing  the  filthy  pup  to  get  drunk?  '  That's  just  what  she  called 
him — pup.  '  I'll  have  no  such  nasty  language  in  my  house,' 
I  says,  *  and  you  pretending  and  pulling  the  wool  over  people's 
eyes  and  making  them  think  you're  educated  and  fit  to  be  a 
teacher  and  look  out  for  young  people's  morals — you're  worse 


38o  MAIN   STREET 

'n  any  street-walker!  '  I  says.  I  let  her  have  it  good.  I 
wa'n't  going  to  flinch  from  my  bounden  duty  and  let  her  think 
that  decent  folks  had  to  stand  for  her  vile  talk.  *  Purpose?  ' 
I  says,  '  Purpose?  I'll  tell  you  what  purpose  you  hadl  Ain't 
I  seen  you  making  up  to  everything  in  pants  that'd  waste 
time  and  pay  attention  to  your  impertinence?  Ain't  I  seen 
you  showing  off  your  legs  with  them  short  skirts  of  yours, 
trying  to  make  out  like  you  was  so  girlish  and  la-de-da, 
running  along  the  street?  * " 

Carol  was  very  sick  at  this  version  of  Fern's  eager  youth, 
but  she  was  sicker  as  Mrs.  Bogart  hinted  that  no  one  could 
tell  what  had  happened  between  Fern  and  Cy  before  the 
drive  home.  Without  exactly  describing  the  scene,  by  her 
power  of  lustful  imagination  the  woman  suggested  dark  country 
places  apart  from  the  lanterns  and  rude  fiddling  and  banging 
dance-steps  in  the  barn,  then  madness  and  harsh  hateful  con 
quest.  Carol  was  too  sick  to  interrupt.  It  was  Kennicott 
who  cried,  "  Oh,  for  God's  sake  quit  it!  You  haven't  any  idea 
what  happened.  You  haven't  given  us  a  single  proof  yet  that 
Fern  is  anything  but  a  rattle-brained  youngster." 

"  I  haven't,  eh?  Well,  what  do  you  say  to  this?  I  come 
straight  out  and  I  says  to  her, '  Did  you  or  did  you  not  taste  the 
whisky  Cy  had?  '  and  she  says, '  I  think  I  did  take  one  sip — 
Cy  made  me/  she  said.  She  owned  up  to  that  much,  so  you 
can  imagine " 

"  Does  that  prove  her  a  prostitute?  "  asked  Carol. 

"  Carrie!  Don't  you  never  use  a  word  like  that  again!  " 
wailed  the  outraged  Puritan. 

"  Well,  does  it  prove  her  to  be  a  bad  woman,  that  she  took 
a  taste  of  whisky?  I've  done  it  myself!  " 

"  That's  different.  Not  that  I  approve  your  doing  it.  What 
do  the  Scriptures  tell  us?  l  Strong  drink  is  a  mocker '!  But 
that's  entirely  different  from  a  teacher  drinking  with  one  of  her 
own  pupils." 

"  Yes,  it  does  sound  bad.  Fern  was  silly,  undoubtedly.  But 
as  a  matter  of  fact  she's  only  a  year  or  two  older  than  Cy, 
and  probably  a  good  many  years  younger  in  experience  of 
vice." 

"That's — not — true!  She  is  plenty  old  enough  to  corrupt 
him!  " 

"  The  job  of  corrupting  Cy  was  done  by  your  sinless  town, 
five  years  ago!  " 


MAIN   STREET  381 

Mrs.  Bogart  did  not  rage  in  return.  Suddenly  she  was 
hopeless.  Her  head  drooped.  She  patted  her  black  kid  gloves, 
picked  at  a  thread  of  her  faded  brown  skirt,  and  sighed,  "  He's 
a  good  boy,  and  awful  affectionate  if  you  treat  him  right. 
Some  thinks  he's  terrible  wild,  but  that's  because  he's  young. 
And  he's  so  brave  and  truthful — why,  he  was  one  of  the  first 
in  town  that  wanted  to  enlist  for  the  war,  and  I  had  to  speak 
real  sharp  to  him  to  keep  him  from  running  away.  I  didn't 
want  him  to  get  into  no  bad  influences  round  these  camps — 
and  then,"  Mrs.  Bogart  rose  from  her  pitifulness,  recovered  her 
pace,  "  then  I  go  and  bring  into  my  own  house  a  woman  that's 
worse,  when  all's  said  and  done,  than  any  bad  woman  he  could 
have  met.  You  say  this  Mullins  woman  is  too  young  and 
inexperienced  to  corrupt  Cy.  Well  then,  she's  too  young  and 
inexperienced  to  teach  him,  too,  one  or  t'other,  you  can't  have 
your  cake  and  eat  it!  So  it  don't  make  no  difference  which 
reason  they  fire  her  for,  and  that's  practically  almost  what 
I  said  to  the  school-board." 

"  Have  you  been  telling  this  story  to  the  members  of  the 
school-board?  " 

"  I  certainly  have!  Every  one  of  'em!  And  their  wives. 
I  says  to  them,  *  'Tain't  my  affair  to  decide  what  you  should 
or  should  not  do  with  your  teachers,'  I  says,  *  and  I  ain't  pre 
suming  to  dictate  in  any  way,  shape,  manner,  or  form.  I  just 
want  to  know/  I  says,  '  whether  you're  going  to  go  on  record 
as  keeping  here  in  our  schools,  among  a  lot  of  innocent  boys 
and  girls,  a  woman  that  drinks,  smokes,  curses,  uses  bad  lan 
guage,  and  does  such  dreadful  things  as  I  wouldn't  lay  tongue 
to  but  you  know  what  I  mean/  I  says,  '  and  if  so,  I'll  just 
see  to  it  that  the  town  learns  about  it.'  And  that's  what  I  told 
Professor  Mott,  too,  being  superintendent — and  he's  a  righteous 
man,  not  going  autoing  on  the  Sabbath  like  the  school-board 
members.  And  the  professor  as  much  as  admitted  he  was 
suspicious  of  the  Mullins  woman  himself." 


Kennicott  was  less  shocked  and  much  less  frightened  than 
Carol,  and  more  articulate  in  his  description  of  Mrs.  Bogart, 
when  she  had  gone. 

Maud  Dyer  telephoned  to  Carol  and,  after  a  rather  im 
probable  question  about  cooking  lima  beans  with  bacon,  de- 


382  MAIN   STREET 

manded,  "  Have  you  heard  the  scandal  about  this  Miss  Mullins 
and  Cy  Bogart?  " 

"  I'm  sure  it's  a  lie." 

"Oh,  probably  is."  Maud's  manner  indicated  that  the 
falsity  of  the  story  was  an  insignificant  flaw  in  its  general 
delightfulness. 

Carol  crept  to  her  room,  sat  with  hands  curled  tight  to 
gether  as  she  listened  to  a  plague  of  voices.  She  could  hear  the 
town  yelping  with  it,  every  soul  of  them,  gleeful  at  new  details, 
panting  to  win  importance  by  having  details  of  their  own  to 
add.  How  well  they  would  make  up  for  what  they  had  been 
> afraid  to  do  by  imagining  it  in  another!  They  who  had  not 
been  entirely  afraid  (but  merely  careful  and  sneaky),  all  the 
barber-shop  roues  and  millinery-parlor  mondaines,  how  archly 
they  were  giggling  (this  second — she  could  hear  them  at  it) ; 
with  what  self-commendation  they  were  cackling  their  suavest 
wit:  "  You  can't  tell  me  she  ain't  a  gay  bird;  I'm  wise!  " 

And  not  one  man  in  town  to  carry  out  their  pioneer  tradition 
of  superb  and  contemptuous  cursing,  not  one  to  verify  the 
myth  that  their  "  rough  chivalry  "  and  "  rugged  virtues  "  were 
more  generous  than  the  petty  scandal-picking  of  older  lands, 
not  one  dramatic  frontiersman  to  thunder,  with  fantastic  and 
fictional  oaths,  "  What  are  you  hinting  at?  What  are  you 
snickering  at?  What  facts  have  you?  What  are  these  un 
heard-of  sins  you  condemn  so  much — and  like  so  well?  " 

No  one  to  say  it.  Not  Kennicott  nor  Guy  Pollock  nor 
Champ  Perry. 

Erik?    Possibly.    He  would  sputter  uneasy  protest. 

She  suddenly  wondered  what  subterranean  connection  her 
interest  in  Erik  had  with  this  affair.  Wasn't  it  because  they 
had  been  prevented  by  her  caste  from  bounding  on  her  own 
trail  that  they  were  howling  at  Fern? 

in 

Before  supper  she  found,  by  half  a  dozen  telephone  calls, 
that  Fern  had  fled  to  the  Minniemashie  House.  She  hastened 
there,  trying  not  to  be  self-conscious  about  the  people  who 
looked  at  her  on  the  street.  The  clerk  said  indifferently  that 
he  "  guessed  "  Miss  Mullins  was  up  in  Room  37,  and  left  Carol 
to  find  the  way.  She  hunted  along  the  stale-smelling  corridors 
with  their  wallpaper  of  cerise  daisies  and  poison-green  rosettes, 


MAIN   STREET  383 

streaked  in  white  spots  from  spilled  water,  their  frayed 
red  and  yellow  matting,  and  rows  of  pine  doors  painted  a 
sickly  blue.  She  could  not  find  the  number.  In  the  darkness 
at  the  end  of  a  corridor  she  had  to  feel  the  aluminum  figures 
on  the  door-panels.  She  was  startled  once  by  a  man's  voice: 
"  Yep?  Whadyuh  want?  "  and  fled.  When  she  reached  the 
right  door  she  stood  listening.  She  made  out  a  long  sobbing. 
There  was  no  answer  till  her  third  knock;  then  an  alarmed 
"Who  is  it?  Go  away!  " 

Her  hatred  of  the  town  turned  resolute  as  she  pushed  open 
the  door. 

Yesterday  she  had  seen  Fern  Mullins  in  boots  and  tweed 
skirt  and  canary-yellow  sweater,  fleet  and  self-possessed.  Now 
she  lay  across  the  bed,  in  crumpled  lavender  cotton  and  shabby 
pumps,  very  feminine,  utterly  cowed.  She  lifted  her  head  in 
stupid  terror.  Her  hair  was  in  tousled  strings  and  her  face 
was  sallow,  creased.  Her  eyes  were  a  blur  from  weeping. 

"I  didn't!  I  didn't!  "  was  all  she  would  say  at  first,  and 
she  repeated  it  while  Carol  kissed  her  cheek,  stroked  her 
hair,  bathed  her  forehead.  She  rested  then,  while  Carol  looked 
about  the  room — the  welcome  to  strangers,  the  sanctuary  of 
hospitable  Main  Street,  the  lucrative  property  of  Kennicott's 
friend,  Jackson  Elder.  It  smelled  of  old  linen  and  decaying 
carpet  and  ancient  tobacco  smoke.  The  bed  was  rickety,  with 
a  thin  knotty  mattress;  the  sand-colored  walls  were  scratched 
and  gouged;  in  every  corner,  under  everything,  were  fluffy 
dust  and  cigar  ashes;  on  the  tilted  wash-stand  was  a  nicked 
and  squatty  pitcher;  the  only  chair  was  a  grim  straight  object 
of  spotty  varnish;  but  there  was  an  altogether  splendid  gilt 
and  rose  cuspidor. 

She  did  not  try  to  draw  out  Fern's  story;  Fern  insisted  on 
telling  it. 

She  had  gone  to  the  party,  not  quite  liking  Cy  but  willing 
to  endure  him  for  the  sake  of  dancing,  of  escaping  from  Mrs. 
Bogart's  flow  of  moral  comments,  of  relaxing  after  the  first 
strained  weeks  of  teaching.  Cy  "  promised  to  be  good."  He 
was,  on  the  way  out.  There  were  a  few  workmen  from  Gopher 
Prairie  at  the  dance,  with  many  young  farm-people.  Half 
a  dozen  squatters  from  a  degenerate  colony  in  a  brush-hidden 
hollow,  planters  of  potatoes,  suspected  thieves,  came  in  noisily 
drunk.  They  all  pounded  the  floor  of  the  barn  in  old-fashioned 
square  dances,  swinging  their  partners,  skipping,  laughing, 


384  MAIN   STREET 

under  the  incantations  of  Del  Snafflin  the  barber,  who  fiddled 
and  called  the  figures.  Cy  had  two  drinks  from  pocket-flasks. 
Fern  saw  him  fumbling  among  the  overcoats  piled  on  the  feed- 
box  at  the  far  end  of  the  barn;  soon  after  she  heard  a  farmer 
declaring  that  some  one  had  stolen  his  bottle.  She  taxed  Cy 
with  the  theft;  he  chuckled,  "  Oh,  it's  just  a  joke;  I'm  going 
to  give  it  back."  He  demanded  that  she  take  a  drink.  Unless 
she  did,  he  wouldn't  return  the  bottle. 

"  I  just  brushed  my  lips  with  it,  and  gave  it  back  to  him," 
moaned  Fern.  She  sat  up,  glared  at  Carol.  "  Did  you  ever 
take  a  drink?  " 

"  I  have.  A  few.  I'd  love  to  have  one  right  now!  This 
contact  with  righteousness  has  about  done  me  up!  " 

Fern  could  laugh  then.  "  So  would  I !  I  don't  suppose  I've 
had  five  drinks  in  my  life,  but  if  I  meet  just  one  more  Bogart 

and  Son Well,  I  didn't  really  touch  that  bottle — horrible 

raw  whisky — though  I'd  have  loved  some  wine.  I  felt  so  jolly. 
The  barn  was  almost  like  a  stage  scene — the  high  rafters,  and 
the  dark  stalls,  and  tin  lanterns  swinging,  and  a  silage-cutter 
up  at  the  end  like  some  mysterious  kind  of  machine.  And 
I'd  been  having  lots  of  fun  dancing  with  the  nicest  young 
farmer,  so  strong  and  nice,  and  awfully  intelligent.  But  I  got 
uneasy  when  I  saw  how  Cy  was.  So  I  doubt  if  I  touched  two 
drops  of  the  beastly  stuff.  Do  you  suppose  God  is  punishing 
me  for  even  wanting  wine?  " 

"  My  dear,  Mrs.  Bogart's  god  may  be — Main  Street's  god. 
But  all  the  courageous  intelligent  people  are  fighting  him 
.  .  .  though  he  slay  us." 

Fern  danced  again  with  the  young  farmer;  she  forgot  Cy 
while  she  was  talking  with  a  girl  who  had  taken  the  University 
agricultural  course.  Cy  could  not  have  returned  the  bottle; 
he  came  staggering  toward  her — taking  time  to  make  himself 
offensive  to  every  girl  on  the  way  and  to  dance  a  jig.  She 
insisted  on  their  returning.  Cy  went  with  her,  chuckling  and 
jigging.  He  kissed  her,  outside  the  door.  .  .  .  "And 
to  think  I  used  to  think  it  was  interesting  to  have  men  kiss 
you  at  a  dance!  "...  She  ignored  the  kiss,  in  the  need 
of  getting  him  home  before  he  started  a  fight.  A  farmer  helped 
her  harness  the  buggy,  while  Cy  snored  in  the  seat.  He  awoke 
before  they  set  out;  all  the  way  home  he  alternately  slept  and 
tried  to  make  love  to  her. 

"I'm  almost  as  strong  as  he  is.    I  managed  to  keep  him 


MAIN   STREET  385 

away  while  I  drove — such  a  rickety  buggy.  I  didn't  feel  like 
a  girl;  I  felt  like  a  scrubwoman — no,  I  guess  I  was  too  scared 
to  have  any  feelings  at  all.  It  was  terribly  dark.  I  got  home, 
somehow.  But  it  was  hard,  the  time  I  had  to  get  out,  and  it 
was  quite  muddy,  to  read  a  sign-post — I  lit  matches  that  I 
took  from  Cy's  coat  pocket,  and  he  followed  me — he  fell  off  the 
buggy  step  into  the  mud,  and  got  up  and  tried  to  make  love 

to  me,  and I  was  scared.  But  I  hit  him.  Quite  hard. 

And  got  in,  and  so  he  ran  after  the  buggy,  crying  like  a  baby, 

and  I  let  him  in  again,  and  right  away  again  he  was  trying 

But  no  matter.  I  got  him  home.  Up  on  the  porch.  Mrs. 
Bogart  was  waiting  up.  . 

"  You  know,  it  was  funny ;  all  the  time  she  was — oh,  talking 
to  me — and  Cy  was  being  terribly  sick — I  just  kept  thinking, 
*  I've  still  got  to  drive  the  buggy  down  to  the  livery  stable. 
I  wonder  if  the  livery  man  will  be  awake?  '  But  I  got  through 
somehow.  I  took  the  buggy  down  to  the  stable,  and  got  to 
my  room.  I  locked  my  door,  but  Mrs.  Bogart  kept  saying 
things,  outside  the  door.  Stood  out  there  saying  things  about 
me,  dreadful  things,  and  rattling  the  knob.  And  all  the  while 
I  could  hear  Cy  in  the  back  yard — being  sick.  I  don't  think 
I'll  ever  marry  any  man.  And  then  today 

"  She  drove  me  right  out  of  the  house.  She  wouldn't  listen 
to  me,  all  morning.  Just  to  Cy.  I  suppose  he's  over  his 
headache  now.  Even  at  breakfast  he  thought  the  whole  thing 
was  a  grand  joke.  I  suppose  right  this  minute  he's  going 
around  town  boasting  about  his  '  conquest/  You  understand — 
oh,  don't  you  understand?  I  did  keep  him  away!  But  I  don't 
see  how  I  can  face  my  school.  They  say  country  towns  are 

fine  for  bringing  up  boys  in,  but I  can't  believe  this  is 

me,  lying  here  and  saying  this.  I  don't  believe  what  happened 
last  night. 

"Oh.  This  was  curious:  When  I  took  off  my  dress  last 
night — it  was  a  darling  dress,  I  loved  it  so,  but  of  course  the 

mud  had  spoiled  it.  I  cried  over  it  and No  matter.  But 

my  white  silk  stockings  were  all  torn,  and  the  strange  thing  is, 
I  don't  know  whether  I  caught  my  legs  in  the  briers  when  I  got 
out  to  look  at  the  sign-post,  or  whether  Cy  scratched  me  when 
I  was  fighting  him  off." 


386  MAIN    STREET 

IV 

Sam  Clark  was  president  of  the  school-board.  When  Carol 
told  him  Fern's  story  Sam  looked  sympathetic  and  neighborly, 
and  Mrs.  Clark  sat  by  cooing,  "  Oh,  isn't  that  too  bad."  Carol 
was  interrupted  only  when  Mrs.  Clark  begged,  "  Dear,  don't 
speak  so  bitter  about  '  pious '  people.  There's  lots  of  sincere 
practising  Christians  that  are  real  tolerant.  Like  the  Champ 
Perrys." 

"  Yes.  I  know.  Unfortunately  there  are  enough  kindly 
people  in  the  churches  to  keep  them  going." 

When  Carol  had  finished,  Mrs.  Clark  breathed,  "Poor  girl; 
I  don't  doubt  her  story  a  bit,"  and  Sam  rumbled,  "  Yuh,  sure. 
Miss  Mullins  is  young  and  reckless,  but  everybody  in  town, 
except  Ma  Bogart,  knows  what  Cy  is.  But  Miss  Mullins  was 
a  fool  to  go  with  him." 

"  But  not  wicked  enough  to  pay  for  it  with  disgrace?  " 

"  N-no,  but "  Sam  avoided  verdicts,  clung  to  the  en 
trancing  horrors  of  the  story.  "  Ma  Bogart  cussed  her  out  all 
morning,  did  she?  Jumped  her  neck,  eh?  Ma  certainly  is 
one  hell-cat." 

"  Yes,  you  know  how  she  is;  so  vicious." 

"  Oh  no,  her  best  style  ain't  her  viciousness.  What  she  pulls 
in  our  store  is  to  come  in  smiling  with  Christian  Fortitude  and 
keep  a  clerk  busy  for  one  hour  while  she  picks  out  half  a  dozen 
fourpenny  nails.  I  remember  one  time " 

"  Sam!  "  Carol  was  uneasy.  "  You'll  fight  for  Fern,  won't 
you?  When  Mrs.  Bogart  came  to  see  you  did  she  make  definite 
charges?  " 

"  Well,  yes,  you  might  say  she  did." 

"  But  the  school-board  won't  act  on  them?  " 

"  Guess  we'll  more  or  less  have  to." 

"  But  you'll  exonerate  Fern?  " 

"  I'll  do  what  I  can  for  the  girl  personally,  but  you  know 

what  the  board  is.    There's  Reverend  Zitterel;  Sister  Bogart 

about  half  runs  his  church,  so  of  course  he'll  take  her  say-so; 

and  Ezra  Stowbody,  as  a  banker  he  has  to  be  all  hell  for 

morality  and  purity.    Might 's  well  admit  it,  Carrie;  I'm  afraid 

there'll  be  a  majority  of  the  board  against  her.    Not  that  any 

of  us  would  believe  a  word  Cy  said,  not  if  he  swore  it  on  a 

/  stack  of  Bibles,  but  still,  after  all  this  gossip,  Miss  Mullins 

i  wouldn't  hardly  be  the  party  to  chaperon  our  basket-ball  team 

V 


MAIN   STREET  387 

when  it  went  out  of  town  to  play  other  high  schools,  would 
she!  " 

"  Perhaps  not,  but  couldn't  some  one  else?  " 

"Why,  that's  one  of  the  things  she  was  hired  for."  Sam 
sounded  stubborn. 

"  Do  you  realize  that  this  isn't  just  a  matter  of  a  job,  and 
hiring  and  firing;  that  it's  actually  sending  a  splendid  girl  out 
with  a  beastly  stain  on  her,  giving  all  the  other  Bogarts  in  the 
world  a  chance  at  her?  That's  what  will  happen  if  you  dis 
charge  her." 

Sam  moved  uncomfortably,  looked  at  his  wife,  scratched  his 
head,  sighed,  said  nothing. 

"  Won't  you  fight  for  her  on  the  board?  If  you  lose,  won't 
you,  and  whoever  agrees  with  you,  make  a  minority  report?  " 

"  No  reports  made  in  a  case  like  this.  Our  rule  is  to  just 
decide  the  thing  and  announce  the  final  decision,  whether  it's 
unanimous  or  not." 

"Rules!  Against  a  girl's  future!  Dear  God!  Rules  of  a 
school-board!  Sam!  Won't  you  stand  by  Fern,  and  threaten 
to  resign  from  the  board  if  they  try  to  discharge  her?  " 

Rather  testy,  tired  of  so  many  subtleties,  he  complained, 
11  Well,  I'll  do  what  I  can,  but  I'll  have  to  wait  till  the  board 
meets." 

And  "  I'll  do  what  I  can,"  together  with  the  secret  admission 
"  Of  course  you  and  I  know  what  Ma  Bogart  is,"  was  all  Carol 
could  get  from  Superintendent  George  Edwin  Mott,  Ezra  Stow- 
body,  the  Reverend  Mr.  Zitterel  or  any  other  member  of  the 
school-board. 

Afterward  she  wondered  whether  Mr.  Zitterel  could  have 
been  referring  to  herself  when  he  observed,  "  There's  too  much 
license  in  high  places  in  this  town,  though,  and  the  wages  of 
sin  is  death — or  anyway,  bein'  fired."  The  holy  leer  with  which 
the  priest  said  it  remained  in  her  mind. 

She  was  at  the  hotel  before  eight  next  morning.  Fern  longed 
to  go  to  school,  to  face  the  tittering,  but  she  was  too  shaky. 
Carol  read  to  her  all  day  and,  by  reassuring  her,  convinced  her 
own  self  that  the  school-board  would  be  just.  She  was  less 
sure  of  it  that  evening  when,  at  the  motion  pictures,  she  heard 
Mrs.  Gougerling  exclaim  to  Mrs.  Rowland,  "  She  may  be  so 
innocent  and  all,  and  I  suppose  she  probably  is,  but  still,  if  she 
drank  a  whole  bottle  of  whisky  at  that  dance,  the  way  every 
body  says  she  did,  she  may  have  forgotten  she  was  so  innocent  i 


388  MAIN   STREET 

Hee,  hee,  hee !  "  Maud  Dyer,  leaning  back  from  her  seat,  put 
in,  "  That's  what  I've  said  all  along.  I  don't  want  to  roast 
anybody,  but  have  you  noticed  the  way  she  looks  at  men?  " 

"  When  will  they  have  me  on  the  scaffold?  "  Carol  speculated. 

Nat  Hicks  stopped  the  Kennicotts  on  their  way  home.  Carol 
hated  him  for  his  manner  of  assuming  that  they  two  had  a 
mysterious  understanding.  Without  quite  winking  he  seemed 
to  wink  at  her  as  he  gurgled,  "  What  do  you  folks  think  about 
this  Mullins  woman?  I'm  not  strait-laced,  but  I  tell  you  we 
got  to  have  decent  women  in  our  schools.  D'  you  know  what 
I  heard?  They  say  whatever  she  may  of  done  afterwards,  this 
Mullins  dame  took  two  quarts  of  whisky  to  the  dance  with 
her,  and  got  stewed  before  Cy  did!  Some  tank,  that  wren! 
Ha,  ha,  ha!  " 

"  Rats,  I  don't  believe  it,"  Kennicott  muttered. 

He  got  Carol  away  before  she  was  able  to  speak. 

She  saw  Erik  passing  the  house,  late,  alone,  and  she  stared 
after  him,  longing  for  the  lively  bitterness  of  the  things  he 
would  say  about  the  town.  Kennicott  had  nothing  for  her  but 
"  Oh,  course,  ev'body  likes  a  juicy  story,  but  they  don't  intend 
to  be  mean." 

She  went  up  to  bed  proving  to  herself  that  the  members  of 
the  school-board  were  superior  men. 

It  was  Tuesday  afternoon  before  she  learned  that  the  board 
had  met  at  ten  in  the  morning  and  voted  to  "accept  Miss 
Fern  Mullins's  resignation."  Sam  Clark  telephoned  the  news 
to  her.  "  We're  not  making  any  charges.  We're  just  letting 
her  resign.  Would  you  like  to  drop  over  to  the  hotel  and  ask 
her  to  write  the  resignation,  now  we've  accepted  it?  Glad  I 
could  get  the  board  to  put  it  that  way.  It's  thanks  to  you." 

"  But  can't  you  see  that  the  town  will  take  this  as  proof 
of  the  charges?  " 

"  We're — not — making — no — charges — whatever !  "  Sam  was 
obviously  finding  it  hard  to  be  patient. 

Fern  left  town  that  evening. 

Carol  went  with  her  to  the  train.  The  two  girls  elbowed 
through  a  silent  lip-licking  crowd.  Carol  tried  to  stare  them 
down  but  in  face  of  the  impishness  of  the  boys  and  the  bovine 
gaping  of  the  men,  she  was  embarrassed.  Fern  did  not  glance 
at  them.  Carol  felt  her  arm  tremble,  though  she  was  tearless, 
listless,  plodding.  She  squeezed  Carol's  hand,  said  something 
unintelligible,  stumbled  up  into  the  vestibule. 


MAIN   STREET  389 

Carol  remembered  that  Miles  Bjornstam  had  also  taken  a 
train.  What  would  be  the  scene  at  the  station  when  she 
herself  took  departure? 

She  walked  up-town  behind  two  strangers. 

One  of  them  was  giggling,  "  See  that  good-looking  wench 
that  got  on  here?  The  swell  kid  with  the  small  black  hat? 
She's  some  charmer !  I  was  here  yesterday,  before  my  jump  to 
Ojibway  Falls,  and  I  heard  all  about  her.  Seems  she  was  a 
teacher,  but  she  certainly  was  a  high-roller — O  boy! — high, 
wide,  and  fancy!  Her  and  couple  of  other  skirts  bought  a 
whole  case  of  whisky  and  went  on  a  tear,  and  one  night,  darned 
if  this  bunch  of  cradle-robbers  didn't  get  hold  of  some  young 
kids,  just  small  boys,  and  they  all  got  lit  up  like  a  White  Way, 
and  went  out  to  a  roughneck  dance,  and  they  say " 

The  narrator  turned,  saw  a  woman  near  and,  not  being  a 
common  person  nor  a  coarse  workman  but  a  clever  salesman 
and  a  householder,  lowered  his  voice  for  the  rest  of  the  tale. 
During  it  the  other  man  laughed  hoarsely. 

Carol  turned  off  on  a  side-street. 

She  passed  Cy  Bogart.  He  was  humorously  narrating  some 
achievement  to  a  group  which  included  Nat  Hicks,  Del  Snafflin, 
Bert  Tybee  the  bartender,  and  A.  Tennyson  O'Hearn  the 
shyster  lawyer.  They  were  men  far  older  than  Cy  but  they 
accepted  him  as  one  of  their  own,  and  encouraged  him  to 
go  on. 

It  was  a  week  before  she  received  from  Fern  a  letter  of 
which  this  was  a  part: 

...  &  of  course  my  family  did  not  really  believe  the  story  but 
as  they  were  sure  I  must  have  done  something  wrong  they  just 
lectured  me  generally,  in  fact  jawed  me  till  I  have  gone  to  live  at 
a  boarding  house.  The  teachers'  agencies  must  know  the  story, 
man  at  one  almost  slammed  the  door  in  my  face  when  I  went  to 
ask  about  a  job,  &  at  another  the  woman  in  charge  was  beastly. 
Don't  know  what  I  will  do.  Don't  seem  to  feel  very  well.  May 
marry  a  fellow  that's  in  love  with  me  but  he's  so  stupid  that  he 
makes  me  scream. 

Dear  Mrs.  Kennicott  you  were  the  only  one  that  believed  me. 
I  guess  it's  a  joke  on  me,  I  was  such  a  simp,  I  felt  quite  heroic 
while  I  was  driving  the  buggy  back  that  night  &  keeping  Cy  away 
from  me.  I  guess  I  expected  the  people  in  Gopher  Prairie  to  admire 
me.  I  did  use  to  be  admired  for  my  athletics  at  the  U.— just  five 
months  ago. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

i 


FOR  a  month  which  was  one  suspended  moment  of  doubt  she 
saw  Erik  only  casually,  at  an  Eastern  Star  dance,  at  the  shop, 
where,  in  the  presence  of  Nat  Hicks,  they  conferred  with  im 
mense  particularity  on  the  significance  of  having  one  or  two 
buttons  on  the  cuff  of  Kennicott's  New  Suit.  For  the  benefit 
of  beholders  they  were  respectably  vacuous. 

Thus  barred  from  him,  depressed  in  the  thought  of  Fern, 
Carol  was  suddenly  and  for  the  first  time  convinced  that  she 
loved  Erik. 

She  told  herself  a  thousand  inspiriting  things  which  he  would 
say  if  he  had  the  opportunity;  for  them  she  admired  him, 
loved  him.  But  she  was  afraid  to  summon  him.  He  under 
stood,  he  did  not  come.  She  forgot  her  every  doubt  of  him, 
and  her  discomfort  in  his  background.  Each  day  it  seemed 
impossible  to  get  through  the  desolation  of  not  seeing  him. 
Each  morning,  each  afternoon,  each  evening  was  a  compartment 
divided  from  all  other  units  of  time,  distinguished  by  a  sudden 
"Oh!  I  want  to  see  Erik!  "  which  was  as  devastating  as 
though  she  had  never  said  it  before. 

There  were  wretched  periods  when  she  could  not  picture 
him.  Usually  he  stood  out  in  her  mind  in  some  little  moment — 
glancing  up  from  his  preposterous  pressing-iron,  or  running  on 
the  beach  with  Dave  Dyer.  But  sometimes  he  had  vanished; 
he  was  only  an  opinion.  She  worried  then  about  his  appear 
ance:  Weren't  his  wrists  too  large  and  red?  Wasn't  his  nose 
a  snub,  like  so  many  Scandinavians?  Was  he  at  all  the  grace 
ful  thing  she  had  fancied?  When  she  encountered  him  on  the 
street  she  was  as  much  reassuring  herself  as  rejoicing  in  his 
presence.  More  disturbing  than  being  unable  to  visualize  him 
was  the  darting  remembrance  of  some  intimate  aspect:  his 
face  as  they  had  walked  to  the  boat  together  at  the  picnic*, 
the  ruddy  light  on  his  temples,  neck-cords,  flat  cheeks. 

On  a  November  evening  when  Kennicott  was  in  the  country 
she  answered  the  bell  and  was  confused  to  find  Erik  at  the 

390 


MAIN   STREET  391 

door,  stooped,  imploring,  his  hands  in  the  pockets  of  his  top 
coat.  As  though  he  had  been  rehearsing  his  speech  he  instantly 
besought: 

"  Saw  your  husband  driving  away.  I've  got  to  see  you.  I 
can't  stand  it.  Come  for  a  walk.  I  know!  People  might 
see  us.  But  they  won't  if  we  hike  into  the  country.  I'll  wait 
for  you  by  the  elevator.  Take  as  long  as  you  want  to — oh, 
come  quick!  " 

"  In  a  few  minutes,"  she  promised. 

She  murmured,  "  I'll  just  talk  to  him  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  and  come  home."  She  put  on  her  tweed  coat  and  rubber 
overshoes,  considering  how  honest  and  hopeless  are  rubbers, 
how  clearly  their  chaperonage  proved  that  she  wasn't  going 
to  a  lovers'  tryst. 

She  found  him  in  the  shadow  of  the  grain-elevator,  sulkily 
kicking  at  a  rail  of  the  side-track.  As  she  came  toward  him 
she  fancied  that  his  whole  body  expanded.  But  he  said  nothing, 
nor  she;  he  patted  her  sleeve,  she  returned  the  pat,  and  they 
crossed  the  railroad  tracks,  found  a  road,  clumped  toward 
open  country. 

"  Chilly  night,  but  I  like  this  melancholy  gray,"  he  said. 

"  Yes." 

They  passed  a  moaning  clump  of  trees  and  splashed  along 
the  wet  road.  He  tucked  her  hand  into  the  side-pocket  of  his 
overcoat.  She  caught  his  thumb  and,  sighing,  held  it  exactly 
as  Hugh  held  hers  when  they  went  walking.  She  thought 
about  Hugh.  The  current  maid  was  in  for  the  evening,  but 
was  it  safe  to  leave  the  baby  with  her?  The  thought  was 
distant  and  elusive. 

Erik  began  to  talk,  slowly,  revealingly.  He  made  for  her  a 
picture  of  his  work  in  a  large  tailor  shop  in  Minneapolis:  the 
steam  and  heat,  and  the  drudgery;  the  men  in  darned  vests 
and  crumpled  trousers,  men  who  "  rushed  growlers  of  beer  " 
and  were  cynical  about  women,  who  laughed  at  him  and  played 
jokes  on  him.  "  But  I  didn't  mind,  because  I  could  keep  away 
from  them  outside.  I  used  to  go  to  the  Art  Institute  and  the 
Walker  Gallery,  and  tramp  clear  around  Lake  Harriet,  or  hike 
out  to  the  Gates  house  and  imagine  it  was  a  chateau  in  Italy 
and  I  lived  in  it.  I  was  a  marquis  and  collected  tapestries — 
that  w?is  after  I  was  wounded  in  Padua.  The  only  really  bad 
time  TAtts  when  a  tailor  named  Finkelfarb  found  a  diary  I  was 
trying  to  keep  and  he  read  it  aloud  in  the  shop — it  was  a 


392  MAIN   STREET 

bad  fight."  He  laughed.  "  I  got  fined  five  dollars.  But  that's 
all  gone  now.  Seems  as  though  you  stand  between  me  and 
the  gas  stoves — the  long  flames  with  mauve  edges,  licking  up 
around  the  irons  and  making  that  sneering  sound  all  day — 
aaaaah!  " 

Her  fingers  tightened  about  his  thumb  as  she  perceived  the 
hot  low  room,  the  pounding  of  pressing-irons,  the  reek  of 
scorched  cloth,  and  Erik  among  giggling  gnomes.  His  finger 
tip  crept  through  the  opening  of  her  glove  and  smoothed  her 
palm.  She  snatched  her  hand  away,  stripped  off  her  glove, 
tucked  her  hand  back  into  his. 

He  was  saying  something  about  a  "  wonderful  person."  In 
her  tranquillity  she  let  the  words  blow  by  and  heeded  only  the 
beating  wings  of  his  voice. 

She  was  conscious  that  he  was  fumbling  for  impressive 
speech. 

"  Say,  uh — Carol,  IVe  written  a  poem  about  you." 

"  That's  nice.    Let's  hear  it." 

"  Damn  it,  don't  be  so  casual  about  it!  Can't  you  take  me 
seriously?  " 

"  My  dear  boy,  if  I  took  you  seriously !  I  don't  want 

us  to  be  hurt  more  than — more  than  we  will  be.  Tell  me  the 
poem.  I've  never  had  a  poem  written  about  me!  " 

"  It  isn't  really  a  poem.  It's  just  some  words  that  I  love 
because  it  seems  to  me  they  catch  what  you  are.  Of  course 

probably  they  won't  seem  so  to  anybody  else,  but 

Well 

Little  and  tender  and  merry  and  wise 
With  eyes  that  meet  my  eyes.' 

Do  you  get  the  idea  the  way  I  do?  " 

"Yes!  I'm  terribly  grateful!  "  And  she  was  grateful- 
while  she  impersonally  noted  how  bad  a  verse  it  was. 

She  was  aware  of  the  haggard  beauty  in  the  lowering  night. 
Monstrous  tattered  clouds  sprawled  round  a  forlorn  moon; 
puddles  and  rocks  glistened  with  inner  light.  They  were  pass 
ing  a  grove  of  scrub  poplars,  feeble  by  day  but  looming  now 
like. a  menacing  wall.  She  stopped.  They  heard  the  tranches 
dripping,  the  wet  leaves  sullenly  plumping  on  the  soggy  earth. 

"Waiting — waiting — everything  is  waiting,"  she  whispered. 
She  drew  her  hand  from  his,  pressed  her  clenched  fingers 


MAIN    STREET  393 

against  her  lips.  She  was  lost  in  the  somberness.  "I  am 
happy — so  we  must  go  home,  before  we  have  time  to  become 
unhappy.  But  can't  we  sit  on  a  log  for  a  minute  and  just 
listen?  " 

"  No.  Too  wet.  But  I  wish  we  could  build  a  fire,  and  you 
could  sit  on  my  overcoat  beside  it.  I'm  a  grand  fire-builder! 
My  cousin  Lars  and  me  spent  a  week  one  time  in  a  cabin 
way  up  in  the  Big  Woods,  snowed  in.  The  fireplace  was  filled 
with  a  dome  of  ice  when  we  got  there,  but  we  chopped  it  out, 
and  jammed  the  thing  full  of  pine-boughs.  Couldn't  we  build 
a  fire  back  here  in  the  woods  and  sit  by  it  for  a  while?  " 

She  pondered,  half-way  between  yielding  and  refusal.  Her 
head  ached  faintly.  She  was  in  abeyance.  Everything,  the 
night,  his  silhouette,  the  cautious- treading  future,  was  as  un- 
distinguishable  as  though  she  were  drifting  bodiless  in  a  Fourth 
Dimension.  While  her  mind  groped,  the  lights  of  a  motor  car 
swooped  round  a  bend  in  the  road,  and  they  stood  farther 

apart.     "What  ought  I  to  do?"  she  mused.    "I  think 

Oh,  I  won't  be  robbed!  I  am  good!  If  I'm  so  enslaved  that 
I  can't  sit  by  the  fire  with  a  man  and  talk,  then  I'd  better 
be  dead!  " 

The  lights  of  the  thrumming  car  grew  magically;  were  upon 
them;  abruptly  stopped.  From  behind  the  dimness  of  the  wind 
shield  a  voice,  annoyed,  sharp:  "  Hello  there!  " 

She  realized  that  it  was  Kennicott. 

The  irritation  in  his  voice  smoothed  out.    "  Having  a  walk?  " 

They  made  schoolboyish  sounds  of  assent. 

"  Pretty  wet,  isn't  it?  Better  ride  back.  Jump  up  in  front 
here,  Valborg." 

His  manner  of  swinging  open  the  door  was  a  command. 
Carol  was  conscious  that  Erik  was  climbing  in,  that  she  was 
apparently  to  sit  in  the  back,  and  that  she  had  been  left  to 
open  the  rear  door  for  herself.  Instantly  the  wonder  which 
had  flamed  to  the  gusty  skies  was  quenched,  and  she  was 
Mrs.  W.  P.  Kennicott  of  Gopher  Prairie,  riding  in  a  squeaking 
old  car,  and  likely  to  be  lectured  by  her  husband. 

She  feared  what  Kennicott  would  say  to  Erik.  She  bent 
toward  them.  Kennicott  was  observing,  "  Going  to  have  some 
rain  before  the  night  's  over,  all  right." 

"  Yes,"  said  Erik. 

"  Been  funny  season  this  year,  anyway.  Never  saw  it  with 
such  a  cold  October  and  such  a  nice  November.  'Member 


394  MAIN   STREET 

we  had  a  snow  way  back  on  October  ninth!  But  it  certainly 
was  nice  up  to  the  twenty-first,  this  month — as  I  remember  it, 
not  a  flake  of  snow  in  November  so  far,  has  there  been?  But 
I  shouldn't  wonder  if  we'd  be  having  some  snow  'most  any 
time  now." 

"  Yes,  good  chance  of  it,"  said  Erik. 

"Wish  I'd  had  more  time  to  go  after  the  ducks  this  fall. 
By  golly,  what  do  you  think?  "    Kennicott  sounded  appealing. 
"  Fellow  wrote  me  from  Man  Trap  Lake  that  he  shot  seven 
mallards  and  couple  of  canvas-back  in  one  hour!  " 
"  That  must  have  been  fine,"  said  Erik. 

Carol  was  ignored.  But  Kennicott  was  blustrously  cheerful. 
He  shouted  to  a  farmer,  as  he  slowed  up  to  pass  the  frightened 
team,  "  There  we  are — schon  gut!  "  She  sat  back,  neglected, 
frozen,  unheroic  heroine  in  a  drama  insanely  undramatic.  She 
made  a  decision  resolute  and  enduring.  She  would  tell  Kenni 
cott What  would  she  tell  him?  She  could  not  say  that 

she  loved  Erik.  Did  she  love  him?  But  she  would  have  it 
out.  She  was  not  sure  whether  it  was  pity  for  Kennicott's 
blindness,  or  irritation  at  his  assumption  that  he  was  enough 
to  fill  any  woman's  life,  which  prompted  her,  but  she  knew 
that  she  was  out  of  the  trap,  that  she  could  be  frank;  and  she 
was  exhilarated  with  the  adventure  of  it  .  .  .  while  in 
front  he  was  entertaining  Erik: 

"  Nothing  like  an  hour  on  a  duck-pass  to  make  you  relish 

your  victuals  and Gosh,  this  machine  hasn't  got  the 

power  of  a  fountain  pen.  Guess  the  cylinders  are  jam-cram-full 
of  carbon  again.  Don't  know  but  what  maybe  I'll  have  to 
put  in  another  set  of  piston-rings." 

He  stopped  on  Main  Street  and  clucked  hospitably,  "  There> 
that'll  give  you  just  a  block  to  walk.  G'  night." 

Carol  was  in  suspense.    Would  Erik  sneak  away? 

He  stolidly  moved  to  the  back  of  the  car,  thrust  in  his  hand, 
muttered,  "  Good  night — Carol.  I'm  glad  we  had  our  walk." 
She  pressed  his  hand.  The  car  was  flapping  on.  He  was 
hidden  from  her — by  a  corner  drug  store  on  Main  Street! 

Kennicott  did  not  recognize  her  till  he  drew  up  before  the 
bouse.  Then  he  condescended,  "  Better  jump  out  here  and 
I'll  take  the  boat  around  back.  Say,  see  if  the  back  door  is 
unlocked,  will  you?  "  She  unlatched  the  door  for  him.  She 
realized  that  she  still  carried  the  damp  glove  she  had  stripped 
off  for  Erik.  She  drew  it  on.  She  stood  in  the  center  of  the 


MAIN    STREET  395 

living-room,  unmoving,  in  damp  coat  and  muddy  rubbers. 
Kennicott  was  as  opaque  as  ever.  Her  task  wouldn't  be  any 
thing  so  lively  as  having  to  endure  a  scolding,  but  only  an 
exasperating  effort  to  command  his  attention  so  that  he  would 
understand  the  nebulous  things  she  had  to  tell  him,  instead 
of  interrupting  her  by  yawning,  winding  the  clock,  and  going 
up  to  bed.  She  heard  him  shoveling  coal  into  the  furnace.  He 
came  through  the  kitchen  energetically,  but  before  he  spoke 
to  her  he  did  stop  in  the  hall,  did  wind  the  clock. 

He  sauntered  into  the  living-room  and  his  glance  passed 
from  her  drenched  hat  to  her  smeared  rubbers.  She  could 
hear — she  could  hear,  see,  taste,  smell,  touch— his  "  Better 
take  your  coat  off,  Carrie;  looks  kind  of  wet."  Yes,  there  it 
was: 

"  Well,  Carrie,  you  better "  He  chucked  his  own  coat 

on  a  chair,  stalked  to  her,  went  on  with  a  rising  tingling  voice,, 
" you  better  cut  it  out  now.  I'm  not  going  to  do  the  out 
raged  husband  stunt.  I  like  you  and  I  respect  you,  and  I'd 
probably  look  like  a  boob  if  I  tried  to  be  dramatic.  But  I  think 
it's  about  time  for  you  and  Valborg  to  call  a  halt  before  you  get 
in  Dutch,  like  Fern  Mullins  did." 

«  DO  you " 

"  Course.  I  know  all  about  it.  What  d'  you  expect  in  a 
town  that's  as  filled  with  busybodies,  that  have  plenty  of  time 
to  stick  their  noses  into  other  folks'  business,  as  this  is?  Not 
that  they've  had  the  nerve  to  do  much  tattling  to  me,  but 
they've  hinted  around  a  lot,  and  anyway,  I  could  see  for  myself 
that  you  liked  him.  But  of  course  I  knew  how  cold  you  were, 
I  knew  you  wouldn't  stand  it  even  if  Valborg  did  try  to  hold 
your  hand  or  kiss  you,  so  I  didn't  worry.  But  same  time,  I 
hope  you  don't  suppose  this  husky  young  Swede  farmer  is  as 
innocent  and  Platonic  and  all  that  stuff  as  you  are!  Wait 
now,  don't  get  sore!  I'm  not  knocking  him.  He  isn't  a  bad 
sort.  And  he's  young  and  likes  to  gas  about  books.  Course 
you  like  him.  That  isn't  the  real  rub.  But  haven't  you  just 
seen  what  this  town  can  do,  once  it  goes  and  gets  moral  on 
you,  like  it  did  with  Fern?  You  probably  think  that  two 
young  folks  making  love  are  alone  if  anybody  ever  is,  but 
there's  nothing  in  this  town  that  you  don't  do  in  company 
with  a  whole  lot  of  uninvited  but  awful  interested  guests. 
Don't  you  realize  that  if  Ma  Westlake  and  a  few  others  got 
started  they'd  drive  you  up  a  tree,  and  you'd  find  yourself  so 


396  MAIN   STREET 

well  advertised  as  being  in  love  with  this  Valborg  fellow  that 
you'd  have  to  be,  just  to  spite  'em!  " 

"  Let  me  sit  down,"  was  all  Carol  could  say.  She  drooped 
on  the  couch,  wearily,  without  elasticity. 

He  yawned,  "  Gimme  your  coat  and  rubbers,"  and  while 
she  stripped  them  off  he  twiddled  his  watch-chain,  felt  the 
radiator,  peered  at  the  thermometer.  He  shook  out  her  wraps 
in  the  hall,  hung  them  up  with  exactly  his  usual  care.  He 
pushed  a  chair  near  to  her  and  sat  bolt  up.  He  looked  like 
a  physician  about  to  give  sound  and  undesired  advice. 

Before  he  could  launch  into  his  heavy  discourse  she  des 
perately  got  in,  "  Please!  I  want  you  to  know  that  I  was 
going  to  tell  you  everything,  tonight." 

"  Well,  I  don't  suppose  there's  really  much  to  tell." 

"  But  there  is.  I'm  fond  of  Erik.  He  appeals  to  something 
in  here."  She  touched  her  breast.  "  And  I  admire  him.  He 
isn't  just  a  *  young  Swede  farmer.'  He's  an  artist " 

"  Wait  now!  He's  had  a  chance  all  evening  to  tell  you 
what  a  whale  of  a  fine  fellow  he  is.  Now  it's  my  turn.  I  can't 

talk  artistic,  but Carrie,  do  you  understand  my  work?  " 

He  leaned  forward,  thick  capable  hands  on  thick  sturdy  thighs, 
mature  and  slow,  yet  beseeching.  "  No  matter  even  if  you  are 
cold,  I  like  you  better  than  anybody  in  the  world.  One  time 
I  said  that  you  were  my  soul.  And  that  still  goes.  You're 
all  the  things  that  I  see  in  a  sunset  when  I'm  driving  in  from 
the  country,  the  things  that  I  like  but  can't  make  poetry  of. 
Do  you  realize  what  my  job  is?  I  go  round  twenty- four  hours 
a  day,  in  mud  and  blizzard,  trying  my  damnedest  to  heal 
everybody,  rich  or  poor.  You — that  're  always  spieling  about 
how  scientists  ought  to  rule  the  world,  instead  of  a  bunch 
of  spread-eagle  politicians — can't  you  see  that  I'm  all  the  sci 
ence  there  is  here?  And  I  can  stand  the  cold  and  the  bumpy 
roads  and  the  tenely  rides  at  night.  All  I  need  is  to  have  you 
here  at  home  to  welcome  me.  I  don't  expect  you  to  be  pas 
sionate — not  any  more  I  don't — but  I  do  expect  you  to  ap 
preciate  my  work.  I  bring  babies  into  the  world,  and  save 
lives,  and  make  cranky  husbands  quit  being  mean  to  their 
wives.  And  then  you  go  and  moon  over  a  Swede  tailor  because 
he  can  talk  about  how  to  put  ruchings  on  a  skirt!  Hell  of  a 
thing  for  a  man  to  fuss  over!  " 

She  flew  out  at  him:  "  You  make  your  side  clear.  Let  me 
give  mine.  I  admit  all  you  say — except  about  Erik.  But  is 


MAIN    STREET  397 

it  only  you,  and  the  baby,  that  want  me  to  back  you  up,  that 
demand  things  from  me?  They're  all  on  me,  the  whole  town! 
I  can  feel  their  hot  breaths  on  my  neck!  Aunt  Bessie  and 
that  horrible  slavering  old  Uncle  Whittier  and  Juanita  and 
Mrs.  Westlake  and  Mrs.  Bogart  and  all  of  them.  And  you 
welcome  them,  you  encourage  them  to  drag  me  down  into  their 
cave!  I  won't  stand  it!  Do  you  hear?  Now,  right  now,  I'm 
done.  And  it's  Erik  who  gives  me  the  courage.  You  say  he 
just  thinks  about  ruches  (which  do  not  usually  go  on  skirts, 
by  the  way!).  I  tell  you  he  thinks  about  God,  the  God  that 
Mrs.  Bogart  covers  up  with  greasy  gingham  wrappers!  Erik 
will  be  a  great  man  some  day,  and  if  I  could  contribute  one 
tiny  bit  to  his  success " 

"  Wait,  wait,  wait  now!  Holdup!  You're  assuming  that 
your  Erik  will  make  good.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  at  my  age  he'll 
i>e  running  a  one-man  tailor  shop  in  some  burg  about  the  size 
j)f  Schoenstrom." 

"He  will  not!" 

"  That's  what  he's  headed  for  now  all  right,  and  he's  twenty- 
five  or  -six  and What's  he  done  to  make  you  think  he'll 

ever  be  anything  but  a  pants-presser?  " 

"  He  has  sensitiveness  and  talent " 

"Wait  now!  What  has  he  actually  done  in  the  art  line? 
Has  he  done  one  first-class  picture  or — sketch,  d'  you  call  it? 
Or  one  poem,  or  played  the  piano,  or  anything  except  gas 
about  what  he's  going  to  do?  " 

She  looked  thoughtful. 

"  Then  it's  a  hundred  to  one  shot  that  he  never  will.  Way 
I  understand  it,  even  these  fellows  that  do  something  pretty 
good  at  home  and  get  to  go  to  art  school,  there  ain't  more 
than  one  out  of  ten  of  'em,  maybe  one  out  of  a  hundred,  that 
ever  get  above  grinding  out  a  bum  living — about  as  artistic 
as  plumbing.  And  when  it  comes  down  to  this  tailor,  why, 
can't  you  see — you  that  take  on  so  about  psychology — can't 
you  see  that  it's  just  by  contrast  with  folks  like  Doc  McGanum 
or  Lym  Cass  that  this  fellow  seems  artistic?  Suppose  you'd 
met  up  with  him  first  in  one  of  thro  reg'lar  New  York  studios! 
You  wouldn't  notice  him  any  more  7n  a  rabbit!  " 

She  huddled  over  folded  hands  like  a  temple  virgin  shivering 
on  her  knees  before  the  thin  warmth  of  a  brazier.  She  could 
not  answer. 

Kennicott  rose  quickly,  sat  on  the  couch,  took  both  her 


MAIN   STREET 

hands.  "  Suppose  he  fails — as  he  will!  Suppose  he  goes  back 
to  tailoring,  and  you're  his  wife.  Is  that  going  to  be  this 
artistic  life  youVe  been  thinking  about?  He's  in  some  bum 
shack,  pressing  pants  all  day,  or  stooped  over  sewing,  and 
having  to  be  polite  to  any  grouch  that  blows  in  and  jams  a 
dirty  stinking  old  suit  in  his  face  and  says,  '  Here  you,  fix 
this,  and  be  blame  quick  about  it.'  He  won't  even  have  enough 
savvy  to  get  him  a  big  shop.  Hell  pike  along  doing  his  own 
work — unless  you,  his  wife,  go  help  him,  go  help  him  in  the 
Shop,  and  stand  over  a  table  all  day,  pushing  a  big  heavy  iron. 
iYour  complexion  will  look  fine  after  about  fifteen  years  of 
baking  that  way,  won't  it!  And  you'll  be  humped  over  like 
an  old  hag.  And  probably  you'll  live  in  one  room  back  of 
the  shop.  And  then  at  night — oh,  you'll  have  your  artist — 
sure!  He'll  come  in  stinking  of  gasoline,  and  cranky  from 
hard  work,  and  hinting  around  that  if  it  hadn't  been  for  you, 
he'd  of  gone  East  and  been  a  great  artist.  Sure!  And  you'll 

be  entertaining  his  relatives Talk  about  Uncle  Whit! 

You'll  be  having  some  old  Axel  Axelberg  coming  in  with  manure 
on  his  boots  and  sitting  down  to  supper  in  his  socks  and  yelling 
at  you,  '  Hurry  up  now,  you  vimmin  make  me  sick!  '  Yes, 
and  you'll  have  a  squalling  brat  every  year,  tugging  at  you 
while  you  press  clothes,  and  you  won't  love  'em  like  you  do 
Hugh  up-stairs,  all  downy  and  asleep " 

"  Please!     Not  any  more!  " 

Her  face  was  on  his  knee. 

He  bent  to  kiss  her  neck.  "  I  don't  want  to  be  unfair.  I 
guess  love  is  a  great  thing,  all  right.  But  think  it  would  stand 
much  of  that  kind  of  stuff?  Oh,  honey,  am  I  so  bad?  Can't 
you  like  me  at  all?  I've — I've  been  so  fond  of  you!  " 

She  snatched  up  his  hand,  she  kissed  it.  Presently  she 
sobbed,  "  I  won't  ever  see  him  again.  I  can't,  now.  The 

hot  living-room  behind  the  tailor  shop I  don't  love  him 

enough  for  that.    And  you  are Even  if  I  were  sure  of 

him,  sure  he  was  the  real  thing,  I  don't  think  I  could  actually 
leave  you.  This  marriage,  it  weaves  people  together.  It's 
not  easy  to  break,  even  when  it  ought  to  be  broken." 

"  And  do  you  want  to  break  it?  " 

"No!  " 

He  lifted  her,  carried  her  up-stairs,  laid  her  on  her  bed, 
turned  to  the  door. 

"  Come  kiss  me,"  she  whimpered. 


MAIN   STREET  399 

He  kissed  her  lightly  and  slipped  away.  For  an  hour  she 
heard  him  moving  about  his  room,  lighting  a  cigar,  drumming 
with  his  knuckles  on  a  chair.  She  felt  that  he  was  a  bulwark 
between  her  and  the  darkness  that  grew  thicker  as  the  delayed 
storm  came  down  in  sleet. 


n 

He  was  cheery  and  more  casual  than  ever  at  breakfast.  All 
day  she  tried  to  devise  a  way  of  giving  Erik  up.  Telephone? 
The  village  central  would  unquestionably  "  listen  in."  A 
letter?  It  might  be  found.  Go  to  see  him?  Impossible. 
That  evening  Kennicott  gave  her,  without  comment,  an  en 
velope.  The  letter  was  signed  "  E.  V." 

I  know  I  can't  do  anything  but  make  trouble  for  you,  I  think. 
I  am  going  to  Minneapolis  tonight  and  from  there  as  soon  as  I  can 
either  to  New  York  or  Chicago.  I  will  do  as  big  things  as  I  can. 
I  I  can't  write  I  love  you  too  much  God  keep  you. 

Until  she  heard  the  whistle  which  told  her  that  the  Minne 
apolis  train  was  leaving  town,  she  kept  herself  from  thinking, 
from  moving.  Then  it  was  all  over.  She  had  no  plan  nor 
desire  for  anything. 

When  she  caught  Kennicott  looking  at  her  over  his  news 
paper  she  fled  to  his  arms,  thrusting  the  paper  aside,  and  for 
the  first  time  in  years  they  were  lovers.  But  she  knew  that  she 
still  had  no  plan  in  life,  save  always  to  go  along  the  same 
streets,  past  the  same  people,  to  the  same  shops. 


in 

A  week  after  Erik's  going  the  maid  startled  her  by  an 
nouncing,  "  There's  a  Mr.  Valborg  down-stairs  say  he  vant  to 
see  you." 

She  was  conscious  of  the  maid's  interested  stare,  angry  at 
this  shattering  of  the  calm  in  which  she  had  hidden.  She 
crept  down,  peeped  into  the  living-room.  It  was  not  Erik 
Valborg  who  stood  there;  it  was  a  small,  gray-bearded,  yellow- 
faced  man  in  mucky  boots,  canvas  jacket,  and  red  mittens. 
He  glowered  at  her  with  shrewd  red  eyes. 

"  You  de  doc's  wife?  " 

«  Yes." 


400  MAIN   STREET 

"I'm  Adolph  Valborg,  from  up  by  Jefferson.  I'm  Erik's 
father." 

"  Oh!  "    He  was  a  monkey-faced  little  man,  and  not  gentle. 

"  What  you  done  wit'  my  son?  " 

"  I  don't  think  I  understand  you." 

"  I  t'ink  you're  going  to  understand  before  I  get  t'rough! 
Where  is  he?  " 

"  Why,  really I  presume  that  he's  in  Minneapolis." 

"You  presume!"  He  looked  through  her  with  a  con- 
temptuousness  such  as  she  could  not  have  imagined.  Only  an 
insane  contortion  of  spelling  could  portray  his  lyric  whine,  his 
mangled  consonants.  He  clamored,  "Presume!  Dot's  a  fine 
word!  I  don't  want  no  fine  words  and  I  don't  want  no  more 
lies!  I  want  to  know  what  you  know!  " 

"  See  here,  Mr.  Valborg,  you  may  stop  this  bullying  right 
now.  I'm  not  one  of  your  farmwomen.  I  don't  know  where 
your  son  is,  and  there's  no  reason  why  I  should  know."  Her 
defiance  ran  out  in  face  of  his  immense  flaxen  stolidity.  He 
raised  his  fist,  worked  up  his  anger  with  the  gesture,  and 
sneered: 

"  You  dirty  city  women  wit'  your  fine  ways  and  fine  dresses! 
A  father  come  here  trying  to  save  his  boy  from  wickedness, 
and  you  call  him  a  bully!  By  God,  I  don't  have  to  take 
no  thin'  off  you  nor  your  husband!  I  ain't  one  of  your  hired 
men.  For  one  time  a  woman  like  you  is  going  to  hear  de  trut' 
about  what  you  are,  and  no  fine  city  words  to  it,  needer." 

"  Really,  Mr.  Valborg " 

"  What  you  done  wit'  him?  Heh?  I'll  yoost  tell  you  what 
you  done!  He  was  a  good  boy,  even  if  he  was  a  damn  fool. 
I  want  him  back  on  de  farm.  He  don't  make  enough  money 
tailoring.  And  I  can't  get  me  no  hired  man!  I  want  to  take 
him  back  on  de  farm.  And  you  butt  in  and  fool  wit'  him  and 
make  love  wit'  him,  and  get  him  to  run  away!  " 

"  You  are  lying!  It's  not  true  that It's  not  true,  and 

if  it  were,  you  would  have  no  right  to  speak  like  this." 

"  Don't  talk  foolish.  I  know.  Ain't  I  heard  from  a  fellow 
dot  live  right  here  in  town  how  you  been  acting  wit'  de  boy? 
I  know  what  you  done!  Walking  wit'  him  in  de  country! 
Hiding  in  de  woods  wit'  him!  Yes  and  I  guess  you  talk  about 
religion  in  de  woods!  Sure!  Women  like  you — you're  worse 
dan  street- walkers!  Rich  women  like  you,  wit'  fine  husbands 
and  no  decent  work  to  do — and  me,  look  at  my  hands,  look 


MAIN    STREET  401 

how  I  work,  look  at  those  hands!  But  you,  oh  God  no,  you 
mustn't  work,  you're  too  fine  to  do  decent  work.  You  got 
to  play  wit'  young  fellows,  younger  as  you  are,  laughing  and 
rolling  around  and  acting  like  de  animals!  You  let  my  son 
alone,  d'  you  hear?  "  He  was  shaking  his  fist  in  her  face.  She 
could  smell  the  manure  and  sweat.  "  It  ain't  no  use  talkin'  to 
women  like  you.  Get  no  trut'  out  of  you.  But  next  time  I 
go  by  your  husband!  " 

He  was  marching  into  the  hall.  Carol  flung  herself  on  him, 
her  clenching  hand  on  his  hayseed-dusty  shoulder.  "  You 
horrible  old  man,  you've  always  tried  to  turn  Erik  into  a  slave, 
to  fatten  your  pocketbook!  You've  sneered  at  him,  and  over 
worked  him,  and  probably  youVe  succeeded  in  preventing  his 
ever  rising  above  your  muck-heap!  And  now  because  you  can't 
drag  him  back,  you  come  here  to  vent Go  tell  my  hus 
band,  go  tell  him,  and  don't  blame  me  when  he  kills  you,  when 
my  husband  kills  you — he  will  kill  you " 

The  man  grunted,  looked  at  her  impassively,  said  one  word, 
and  walked  out. 

She  heard  the  word  very  plainly. 

She  did  not  quite  reach  the  couch.  Her  knees  gave  way, 
she  pitched  forward.  She  heard  her  mind  saying,  "  You 
haven't  fainted.  This  is  ridiculous.  You're  simply  drama 
tizing  yourself.  Get  up."  But  she  could  not  move.  When 
Kennicott  arrived  she  was  lying  on  the  couch.  His  step 
quickened.  "What's  happened,  Carrie?  You  haven't  got  a 
bit  of  blood  in  your  face." 

She  clutched  his  arm.  "  YouVe  got  to  be  sweet  to  me,  and 
kind!  I'm  going  to  California — mountains,  sea.  Please  don't 
argue  about  it,  because  I'm  going." 

Quietly,  "  All  right.  We'll  go.  You  and  I.  Leave  the  kid 
here  with  Aunt  Bessie." 

"Now!  " 

"Well  yes,  just  as  soon  as  we  can  get  away.  Now  don't 
talk  any  more.  Just  imagine  you've  already  started."  He 
smoothed  her  hair,  and  not  till  after  supper  did  he  continue: 
"  I  meant  it  about  California.  But  I  think  we  better  wait 
three  weeks  or  so,  till  I  get  hold  of  some  young  fellow  released 
from  the  medical  corps  to  take  my  practice.  And  if  people 
are  gossiping,  you  don't  want  to  give  them  a  chance  by  running 
away.  Can  you  stand  it  and  face  'em  for  three  weeks  or  so?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  said  emptily. 


402  MAIN   STREET 

IV 

People  covertly  stared  at  her  on  the  street.  Aunt  Bessk 
tried  to  catechize  her  about  Erik's  disappearance,  and  it  wa* 
Kennicott  who  silenced  the  woman  with  a  savage,  "  Say,  arc 
you  hinting  that  Carrie  had  anything  to  do  with  that  fellow's 
beating  it?  Then  let  me  tell  you,  and  you  can  go  right  out 
and  tell  the  whole  bloomin'  town,  that  Carrie  and  I  took  Val — 
took  Erik  riding,  and  he  asked  me  about  getting  a  better  job 
in  Minneapolis,  and  I  advised  him  to  go  to  it.  ... 
Getting  much  sugar  in  at  the  store  now?  " 

Guy  Pollock  crossed  the  street  to  be  pleasant  apropos  of 
California  and  new  novels.  Vida  Sherwin  dragged  her  to  the 
Jolly  Seventeen.  There,  with  every  one  rigidly  listening,  Maud 
Dyer  shot  at  Carol,  "  I  hear  Erik  has  left  town." 

Carol  was  amiable.  "  Yes,  so  I  hear.  In  fact,  he  called 
me  up — told  me  he  had  been  offered  a  lovely  job  in  the  city. 
So  sorry  he's  gone.  He  would  have  been  valuable  if  we'd 
tried  to  start  the  dramatic  association  again.  Still,  I  wouldn't 
be  here  for  the  association  myself,  because  Will  is  all  in  from 
work,  and  I'm  thinking  of  taking  him  to  California.  Juanita — 
you  know  the  Coast  so  well — tell  me:  would  you  start  in  at 
Los  Angeles  or  San  Francisco,  and  what  are  the  best  hotels?  " 

The  Jolly  Seventeen  looked  disappointed,  but  the  Jolly 
Seventeen  liked  to  give  advice,  the  Jolly  Seventeen  liked  to 
mention  the  expensive  hotels  at  which  they  had  stayed.  (A 
meal  counted  as  a  stay.)  Before  they  could  question  her 
again  Carol  escorted  in  with  drum  and  fife  the  topic  of  Raymie 
Wutherspoon.  Vida  had  news  from  her  husband.  He  had 
been  gassed  in  the  trenches,  had  been  in  a  hospital  for  two 
weeks,  had  been  promoted  to  major,  was  learning  French. 


She  left  Hugh  with  Aunt  Bessie. 

But  for  Kennicott  she  would  have  taken  him.  She  hoped 
that  in  some  miraculous  way  yet  unrevealed  she  might  find 
it  possible  to  remain  in  California.  She  did  not  want  to  see 
Gopher  Prairie  again. 

The  Smails  were  to  occupy  the  Kennicott  house,  and  quite 
the  hardest  thing  to  endure  in  the  month  of  waiting  was  the 
series  of  conferences  between  Kennicott  and  Uncle  Whittier 


MAIN   STREET  403 

tn  regard  to  heating  the  garage  and  having  the  furnace  flues 
cleaned. 

Did  Carol,  Kennicott  inquired,  wish  to  stop  in  Minneapolis 
to  buy  new  clothes? 

"  No !  I  want  to  get  as  far  away  as  I  can  as  soon  as  I  can. 
Let's  wait  till  Los  Angeles." 

"Sure,  sure!  Just  as  you  like.  Cheer  up!  We're  going 
to  have  a  large  wide  time,  and  everything  '11  be  different  when 
we  come  back." 


VI 

Dusk  on  a  snowy  December  afternoon.  The  sleeper  which 
would  connect  at  Kansas  City  with  the  California  train  rolled 
out  of  St.  Paul  with  a  chick-a-chick,  chick-a-chick,  chick-a- 
chick  as  it  crossed  the  other  tracks.  It  bumped  through  the 
factory  belt,  gained  speed.  Carol  could  see  nothing  but  gray 
fields,  which  had  closed  in  on  her  all  the  way  from  Gopher 
Prairie.  Ahead  was  darkness. 

"  For  an  hour,  in  Minneapolis,  I  must  have  ?een  near  Erik. 
He's  still  there,  somewhere.  He'll  be  gone  when  I  come  back. 
I'll  never  know  where  he  has  gone." 

As  Kennicott  switched  on  the  seat-light  she  turned  drearily 
to  the  illustrations  in  a  motion-picture  magazine. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 


THEY  journeyed  for  three  and  a  half  months.  They  saw  the 
Grand  Canyon,  the  adobe  walls  of  Sante  Fe  and,  in  a  drive 
from  El  Paso  into  Mexico,  their  first  foreign  land.  They  jogged 
from  San  Diego  and  La  Jolla  to  Los  Angeles,  Pasadena,  River 
side,  through  towns  with  bell-towered  missions  and  orange- 
groves;  they  viewed  Monterey  and  San  Francisco  and  a 
forest  of  sequoias.  They  bathed  in  the  surf  and  climbed  foot 
hills  and  danced,  they  saw  a  polo  game  and  the  making  of 
motion-pictures,  they  sent  one  hundred  and  seventeen  souvenir 
post-cards  to  Gopher  Prairie,  and  once,  on  a  dune  by  a  foggy 
sea  when  she  was  walking  alone,  Carol  found  an  artist,  and  he 
looked  up  at  her  and  said,  "Too  damned  wet  to  paint;  sit 
down  and  talk,"  and  so  for  ten  minutes  she  lived  in  a  romantic 
novel. 

Her  only  struggle  was  in  coaxing  Kennicott  not  to  spend 
all  his  time  with  the  tourists  from  the  ten  thousand  other 
Gopher  Prairies.  In  winter,  California  is  full  of  people  from 
Jowa  and  Nebraska,  Ohio  and  Oklahoma,  who,  having  traveled 
thousands  of  miles  from  their  familiar  villages,  hasten  to  secure 
an  illusion  of  not  having  left  them.  They  hunt  for  people  from 
their  own  states  to  stand  between  them  and  the  shame  of  naked 
mountains;  they  talk  steadily,  in  Pullmans,  on  hotel  porches, 
at  cafeterias  and  motion-picture  shows,  about  the  motors  and 
crops  and  county  politics  back  home.  Kennicott  discussed 
land-prices  with  them,  he  went  into  the  merits  of  the  several 
sorts  of  motor  cars  with  them,  he  was  intimate  with  train 
porters,  and  he  insisted  on  seeing  the  Luke  Dawsons  at  their 
flimsy  bungalow  in  Pasadena,  where  Luke  sat  and  yearned  to 
go  back  and  make  some  more  money.  But  Kennicott  gave 
promise  of  learning  to  play.  He  shouted  in  the  pool  at  the 
Coronado,  and  he  spoke  of  (though  he  did  nothing  more  radical 
than  speak  of)  buying  evening-clothes.  Carol  was  touched 
by  his  efforts  to  enjoy  picture  galleries,  and  the  dogged  way  in 

404 


MAIN    STR2ET  405 

which  he  accumulated  dates  and  dimensions  when  they  fol 
lowed  monkish  guides  through  missions. 

She  felt  strong.  Whenever  she  was  restless  she  dodged  her 
thoughts  by  the  familiar  vagabond  fallacy  of  running  away 
from  them,  of  moving  on  to  a  new  place,  and  thus  she  per 
suaded  herself  that  she  was  tranquil.  In  March  she  willingly 
agreed  with  Kennicott  that  it  was  time  to  go  home.  She  was 
longing  for  Hugh. 

They  left  Monterey  on  April  first,  on  a  day  of  high  blue 
skies  and  poppies  and  a  summer  sea. 

As  the  train  struck  in  among  the  hills  she  resolved,  "  I'm 
going  to  love  the  fine  Will  Kennicott  quality  that  there  is  in 
Gopher  Prairie.  The  nobility  of  good  sense.  It  will  be  sweet 
to  see  Vida  and  Guy  and  the  Clarks.  And  I'm  going  to  see 
my  baby!  All  the  words  he'll  be  able  to  say  now!  It's  a 
new  start.  Everything  will  be  different!  " 

Thus  on  April  first,  among  dappled  hills  and  the  bronze  of 
scrub  oaks,  while  Kennicott  seesawed  on  his  toes  and  chuckled, 
"  Wonder  what  Hugh '11  say  when  he  sees  us?  " 

Three  days  later  they  reached  Gopher  Prairie  in  a  sleet 
storm. 


No  one  knew  that  they  were  coming;  no  one  met  them; 
and  because  of  the  icy  roads,  the  only  conveyance  at  the  sta 
tion  was  the  hotel  'bus,  which  they  missed  while  Kennicott 
was  giving  his  trunk-check  to  the  station  agent — the  only 
person  to  welcome  them.  Carol  waited  for  him  in  the  station, 
among  huddled  German  women  with  shawls  and  umbrellas,  and 
ragged-bearded  farmers  in  corduroy  coats;  peasants  mute  as 
oxen,  in  a  room  thick  with  the  steam  of  wet  coats,  the  reek 
of  the  red-hot  stove,  the  stench  of  sawdust  boxes  which  served 
as  cuspidors.  The  afternoon  light  was  as  reluctant  as  a  winter 
dawn. 

"  This  is  a  useful  market-center,  an  interesting  pioneer  post, 
but  it  is  not  a  home  for  me,"  meditated  the  stranger  Carol. 

Kennicott  suggested,  "  I'd  'phone  for  a  flivver  but  it'd  take 
quite  a  while  for  it  to  get  here.  Let's  walk." 

They  stepped  uncomfortably  from  the  safety  of  the  plank 
platform  and,  balancing  on  their  toes,  taking  cautious  strides, 
ventured  along  the  road.  The  sleety  rain  was  turning  to  snow. 


406  MAIN   STREET 

The  air  was  stealthily  cold.  Beneath  an  inch  of  water  was  a 
layer  of  ice,  so  that  as  they  wavered  with  their  suit-cases  they 
slid  and  almost  fell.  The  wet  snow  drenched  their  gloves;  the 
water  underfoot  splashed  their  itching  ankles.  They  scuffled 
inch  by  inch  for  three  blocks.  In  front  of  Harry  Haydock's 
Kennicott  sighed: 

"  We  better  stop  in  here  and  'phone  for  a  machine." 

She  followed  him  like  a  wet  kitten. 

The  Haydocks  saw  them  laboring  up  the  slippery  concrete 
walk,  up  the  perilous  front  steps,  and  came  to  the  door 
chanting: 

"  Well,  well,  well,  back  again,  eh?  Say,  this  is  fine!  Have 
a  fine  trip?  My,  you  look  like  a  rose,  Carol.  How  did  you 
like  the  coast,  doc?  Well,  well,  well!  Where-all  did  you 
go?" 

But  as  Kennicott  began  to  proclaim  the  list  of  places 
achieved,  Harry  interrupted  with  an  account  of  how  much 
he  himself  had  seen,  two  years  ago.  When  Kennicott  boasted, 
"We  went  through  the  mission  at  Santa  Barbara,"  Harry 
broke  in,  "Yeh,  that's  an  interesting  old  mission.  Say,  I'll 
never  forget  that  hotel  there,  doc.  It  was  swell.  Why,  the 
rooms  were  made  just  like  these  old  monasteries.  Juanita 
and  I  went  from  Santa  Barbara  to  San  Luis  Obispo.  You  folks 
go  to  San  Luis  Obispo?  " 

«  NO,  but " 

"Well  you  ought  to  gone  to  San  Luis  Obispo.  And  then 
we  went  from  there  to  a  ranch,  least  they  called  it  a  ranch " 

Kennicott  got  in  only  one  considerable  narrative,  which 
began: 

"  Say,  I  never  knew — did  you,  Harry? — that  in  the  Chicago 
district  the  Kutz  Kar  sells  as  well  as  the  Overland?  I  never 
thought  much  of  the  Kutz.  But  I  met  a  gentleman  on  the 
train — it  was  when  we  were  pulling  out  of  Albuquerque,  and 
I  was  sitting  on  the  back  platform  of  the  observation  car, 
and  this  man  was  next  to  me  and  he  asked  me  for  a  light, 
and  we  got  to  talking,  and  come  to  find  out,  he  came  from 
Aurora,  and  when  he  found  out  I  came  from  Minnesota  he 
asked  me  if  I  knew  Dr.  Clemworth  of  Red  Wing,  and  of  course, 
while  I've  never  met  him,  I've  heard  of  Clemworth  lots  of 
times,  and  seems  he's  this  man's  brother!  Quite  a  coincidence! 
Well,  we  got  to  talking,  and  we  called  the  porter — that  was  a 
pretty  good  porter  on  that  car — and  we  had  a  couple  bottles 


MAIN    STREET  407 

of  ginger  ale,  and  I  happened  to  mention  the  Kutz  Kar,  and 
this  man — seems  he's  driven  a  lot  of  different  kinds  of  cars — 
he's  got  a  Franklin  now — and  he  said  that  he'd  tried  the  Kutz 
and  liked  it  first-rate.  Well,  when  we  got  into  a  station — 
I  don't  remember  the  name  of  it — Carrie,  what  the  deuce 
was  the  name  of  that  first  stop  we  made  the  other  side  of 
Albuquerque? — well,  anyway,  I  guess  we  must  have  stopped 
there  to  take  on  water,  and  this  man  and  I  got  out  to  stretch 
our  legs,  and  darned  if  there  wasn't  jLjKutz^drawn  right  up 
at  the  depot  platform,  and  he  pointed  out  something  I'd  never 
noticed,  and  I  was  glad  to  learn  about  it:  seems  that  the  gear 
lever  in  the  Kutz  is  an  inch  longer " 

Even  this  chronicle  of  voyages  Harry  interrupted,  with  re 
marks  on  the  advantages  of  the  ball-gear-shift. 

Kennicott  gave  up  hope  of  adequate  credit  for  being  a 
traveled  man,  and  telephoned  to  a  garage  for  a  Ford  taxicab, 
while  Juanita  kissed  Carol  and  made  sure  of  being  the  first 
to  tell  the  latest,  which  included  seven  distinct  and  proven 
scandals  about  Mrs.  Swiftwaite,  and  one  considerable  doubt  as 
to  the  chastity  of  Cy  Bogart. 

They  saw  the  Ford  sedan  making  its  way  over  the  water- 
lined  ice,  through  the  snow-storm,  like  a  tug-boat  in  a  fog. 
The  driver  stopped  at  a  corner.  The  car  skidded,  it  turned 
about  with  comic  reluctance,  crashed  into  a  tree,  and  stood 
tilted  on  a  broken  wheel. 

The  Kennicotts  refused  Harry  Haydock's  not  too  urgent 
offer  to  take  them  home  in  his  car  "  if  I  can  manage  to  get 
it  out  of  the  garage — terrible  day — stayed  home  from  the 
store — but  if  you  say  so,  I'll  take  a  shot  at  it."  Carol  gurgled, 
"  No,  I  think  we'd  better  walk;  probably  make  better  time,  and 
I'm  just  crazy  to  see  my  baby."  With  their  suit-cases  they 
waddled  on.  Their  coats  were  soaked  through. 

Carol  had  forgotten  her  facile  hopes.  She  looked  about 
with  impersonal  eyes.  But  Kennicott,  through  rain-blurred 
lashes,  caught  the  glory  that  was  Back  Home. 

She  noted  bare  tree-trunks,  black  branches,  the  spongy 
brown  earth  between  patches  of  decayed  snow  on  the  lawns. 
The  vacant  lots  were  full  of  tall  dead  weeds.  Stripped  of 
summer  leaves  the  houses  were  hopeless — temporary  shelters. 

Kennicott  chuckled,  "  By  golly,  look  down  there!  Jack  Elder 
must  have  painted  his  garage.  And  look!  Martin  Mahoney 
has  put  up  a  new  fence  around  his  chicken  yard.  Say,  that's 


4o8  MAIN   STREET 

a  good  fence,  eh?  Chicken-tight  and  dog-tight.  That's  cer 
tainly  a  dandy  fence.  Wonder  how  much  it  cost  a  yard? 
Yes,  sir,  they  been  building  right  along,  even  in  winter.  Got 
more  enterprise  than  these  Californians.  Pretty  good  to  be 
home,  eh?  » 

She  noted  that  all  winter  long  the  citizens  had  been  throwing 
garbage  into  their  back  yards,  to  be  cleaned  up  in  spring.  The 
recent  thaw  had  disclosed  heaps  of  ashes,  dog-bones,  torn 
bedding,  clotted  paint-cans,  all  half  covered  by  the  icy  pools 
which  filled  the  hollows  of  the  yards.  The  refuse  had  stained 
the  water  to  vile  colors  of  waste:  thin  red,  sour  yellow,  streaky 
brown. 

Kennicott  chuckled,  "Look  over  there  on  Main  Street! 
They  got  the  feed  store  all  fixed  up,  and  a  new  sign  on  it, 
black  and  gold.  That'll  improve  the  appearance  of  the  block 
a  lot." 

She  noted  that  the  few  people  whom  they  passed  wore  their 
raggedest  coats  for  the  evil  day.  They  were  scarecrows  in  a 
shanty  town.  .  .  .  "  To  think,"  she  marveled,  "  of  coming 
two  thousand  miles,  past  mountains  and  cities,  to  get  off  here, 
and  to  plan  to  stay  here!  What  conceivable  reason  for 
choosing  this  particular  place?  " 

She  noted  a  figure  in  a  rusty  coat  and  a  cloth  cap. 

Kennicott  chuckled,  "  Look  who's  coming!  It's  Sam  Clark! 
Gosh,  all  rigged  out  for  the  weather." 

The  two  men  shook  hands  a  dozen  times  and,  in  the 
Western  fashion,  bumbled,  "Well,  well,  well,  well,  you  old 
hell-hound,  you  old  devil,  how  are  you,  anyway?  You  old 
horse- thief,  maybe  it  ain't  good  to  see  you  again!  "  While  Sam 
nodded  at  her  over  Kennicott's  shoulder,  she  was  embarrassed. 

"  Perhaps  I  should  never  have  gone  away.  I'm  out  of 
practise  in  lying.  I  wish  they  would  get  it  over!  Just  a 
block  more  and — my  baby!  " 

They  were  home.  She  brushed  past  the  welcoming  Aunt 
Bessie  and  knelt  by  Hugh.  As  he  stammered,  "  O  mummy, 
mummy,  don't  go  away!  Stay  with  me,  mummy!  "  she  cried, 
"No,  I'll  never  leave  you  again!  " 

He  volunteered,  "  That's  daddy." 

"  By  golly,  he  knows  us  just  as  if  we'd  never  been  away!  " 
said  Kennicott.  "  You  don't  find  any  of  these  California  kids 
as  bright  as  he  is,  at  his  age!  " 

When  the  trunk  came  they  piled  about  Hugh  the  bewhiskered 


MAIN    STREET  409 

little  wooden  men  fitting  one  inside  another,  the  miniature  junk, 
and  the  Oriental  drum,  from  San  Francisco  Chinatown;  the 
blocks  carved  by  the  old  Frenchman  in  San  Diego ;  the  lariat 
from  San  Antonio. 

"  Will  you  forgive  mummy  for  going  away?  Will  you?  " 
she  whispered. 

Absorbed  in  Hugh,  asking  a  hundred  questions  about  him — 
had  he  had  any  colds?  did  he  still  dawdle  over  his  oatmeal? 
what  about  unfortunate  morning  incidents? — she  viewed  Aunt 
Bessie  only  as  a  source  of  information,  and  was  able  to  ignore 
her  hint,  pointed  by  a  coyly  shaken  finger,  "  Now  that  you've 
had  such  a  fine  long  trip  and  spent  so  much  money  and  all, 
I  hope  you're  going  to  settle  down  and  be  satisfied  and 
not " 

"  Does  he  like  carrots  yet?  "  replied  Carol. 

She  was  cheerful  as  the  snow  began  to  conceal  the  slatternly 
yards.  She  assured  herself  that  the  streets  of  New  York  and 
Chicago  were  as  ugly  as  Gopher  Prairie  in  such  weather;  she 
dismissed  the  thought,  "  But  they  do  have  charming  interiors 
for  refuge."  She  sang  as  she  energetically  looked  over  Hugh's 
clothes. 

The  afternoon  grew  old  and  dark.  Aunt  Bessie  went  home. 
Carol  took  the  baby  into  her  own  room.  The  maid  came  in 
complaining,  "  I  can't  get  no  extra  milk  to  make  chipped  beef 
for  supper."  Hugh  was  sleepy,  and  he  had  been  spoiled  by 
Aunt  Bessie.  Even  to  a  returned  mother,  his  whining  and 
his  trick  of  seven  times  snatching  her  silver  brush  were  fa 
tiguing.  As  a  background,  behind  the  noises  of  Hugh  and  the 
kitchen,  the  house  reeked  with  a  colorless  stillness. 

From  the  window  she  heard  Kennicott  greeting  the  Widow 
Bogart  as  he  had  always  done,  always,  every  snowy  evening: 
"  Guess  this  '11  keep  up  all  night."  She  waited.  There  they 
were,  the  furnace  sounds,  unalterable,  eternal:  removing  ashes, 
shoveling  coal. 

Yes.  She  was  back  home!  Nothing  had  changed.  She 
had  never  been  away.  California?  Had  she  seen  it?  Had  she 
for  one  minute  left  this  scraping  sound  of  the  small  shovel  in 
the  ash-pit  of  the  furnace?  But  Kennicott  preposterously  sup 
posed  that  she  had.  Never  had  she  been  quite  so  far  from 
going  away  as  now  when  he  believed  she  had  just  come  back. 
She  felt  oozing  through  the  walls  the  spirit  of  small  houses  and 
righteous  people.  At  that  instant  she  knew  that  in  running 


4io  MAIN   STREETA 

away  she  had  merely  hidden  her  doubts  behind  the  officious 
stir  of  travel. 

"  Dear  God,  don't  let  me  begin  agonizing  again!  "  she  sobbed. 
Hugh  wept  with  her. 

"  Wait  for  mummy  a  second!  "  She  hastened  down  to  the 
cellar,  to  Kennicott. 

He  was  standing  before  the  furnace.  However  inadequate 
the  rest  of  the  house,  he  had  seen  to  it  that  the  fundamental 
cellar  should  be  large  and  clean,  the  square  pillars  whitewashed, 
and  the  bins  for  coal  and  potatoes  and  trunks  convenient.  A 
glow  from  the  drafts  fell  on  the  smooth  gray  cement  floor  at 
his  feet.  He  was  whistling  tenderly,  staring  at  the  furnace 
with  eyes  which  saw  the  black-domed  monster  as  a  symbol 
of  home  and  of  the  beloved  routine  to  which  he  had  returned — 
his  gipsying  decently  accomplished,  his  duty  of  viewing 
"  sights  "  and  "  curios  "  performed  with  thoroughness.  Un 
conscious  of  her,  he  stooped  and  peered  in  at  the  blue  flames 
among  the  coals.  He  closed  the  door  briskly,  and  made  a 
whirling  gesture  with  his  right  hand,  out  of  pure  bliss. 

He  saw  her.  "  Why,  hello,  old  ladyl  Pretty  darn  good  to 
~e  back,  eh?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  lied,  while  she  quaked,  "  Not  now.    I  can't  face'' 
the  job  of  explaining  now.    He's  been  so  good.     He  trusts 
me.    And  I'm  going  to  break  his  heart!  " 

She  smiled  at  him.  She  tidied  his  sacred  cellar  by  throwing 
an  empty  bluing  bottle  into  the  trash  bin.  She  mourned,  "  It's 
only  the  baby  that  holds  me.  If  Hugh  died She  fled  up 
stairs  in  panic  and  made  sure  that  nothing  had  happened  to 
Hugh  in  these  four  minutes. 

She  saw  a  pencil-mark  on  a  window-sill.  She  had  made  it 
on  a  September  day  when  she  had  been  planning  a  picnic  for 
Fern  Mullins  and  Erik.  Fern  and  she  had  been  hysterical  with 
nonsense,  had  invented  mad  parties  for  all  the  coming  winter. 
She  glanced  across  the  alley  at  the  room  which  Fern  had  oc 
cupied.  A  rag  of  a  gray  curtain  masked  tfte  still  window. 

She  tried  to  think  of  some  one  to  whom  she  wanted  to 
telephone.  There  was  no  one. 

The  Sam  Clarks  called  that  evening  and  encouraged  her  to 
describe  the  missions.  A  dozen  times  they  told  her  how  glad 
they  were  to  have  her  back. 

"  It  is  good  to  be  wanted,"  she  thought.  "  It  will  drug  me 
But Oh,  is  all  life,  always,  an  unresolved  But?  " 


r 


CHAPTER  XXXV 


SHE  tried  to  be  content,  which  was  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
She  fanatically  cleaned  house  all  April.  She  knitted  a  sweater 
for  Hugh.  She  was  diligent  at  Red  Cross  work.  She  was 
silent  when  Vida  raved  that  though  America  hated  war  as  much 
as  ever,  we  mn|t  invade  Germany  and  wipe  out  every  man, 
because  it  was  now  proven  that  there  was  no  soldier  in  the 
German  army  who  was  not  crucifying  prisoners  and  cutting  off 
babies'  hands. 

Carol  was  volunteer  nurse  when  Mrs.  Champ  Perry  suddenly 
died  of  pneumonia. 

In  her  funeral  procession  were  the  eleven  people  left  out 
of  the  Grand  Army  and  the  Territorial  Pioneers,  old  men  and 
women,  very  old  and  weak,  who  a  few  decades  ago  had  been 
boys  and  girls  of  the  frontier,  riding  broncos  through  the  rank 
windy  grass  of  this  prairie.  They  hobbled  behind  a  band  made 
up  of  business  men  and  high-school  boys,  who  straggled  along 
without  uniforms  or  ranks  or  leader,  trying  to  play  Chopin's 
Funeral  March — a  shabby  group  of  neighbors  with  grave  eyes, 
stumbling  through  the  slush  under  a  solemnity  of  faltering 
music. 

Champ  was  broken.  His  rheumatism  was  worse.  The  rooms 
over  the  store  were  silent.  He  could  not  do  his  work  as  buyer 
at  the  elevator.  Farmers  coming  in  with  sled-loads  of  wheat 
complained  that  Champ  could  not  read  the  scale,  that  he 
seemed  always  to  be  watching  some  one  back  in  the  darkness 
of  the  bins.  He  was  seen  slipping  through  alleys,  talking 
to  himself,  trying  to  avoid  observation,  creeping  at  last  to  the 
cemetery.  Once  Carol  followed  him  and  found  the  coarse, 
tobacco-stained,  unimaginative  old  man  lying  on  the  snow  of 
the  grave,  his  thick  arms  spread  out  across  the  raw  mound 
as  if  to  protect  her  from  the  cold,  her  whom  he  had  carefully 
covered  up  every  night  for  sixty  years,  who  was  alone  there 
now,  uncared  for. 

The  elevator  company,  Ezra  Stowbody  president,  let  him  go. 

4.1 1 


412  MAIN   STREET 

The  company,  Ezra  explained  to  Carol,  had  no  funds  for 
giving  pensions. 

She  tried  to  have  him  appointed  to  the  postmastership,  which, 
since  all  the  work  was  done  by  assistants,  was  the  one  sinecure 
in  town,  the  one  reward  for  political  purity.  But  it  proved 
that  Mr.  Bert  Tybee,  the  former  bartender,  desired  the  post- 
mastership. 

At  her  solicitation  Lyman  Cass  gave  Champ  a  warm  berth 
as  night  watchman.  Small  boys  played  a  good  many  tricks 
on  Champ  when  he  fell  asleep  at  the  mill. 


n 

She  had  vicarious  happiness  in  the  return  of  Major  Raymond 
Wutherspoon.  He  was  well,  but  still  weak  from  having  been 
gassed;  he  had  been  discharged  and  he  came  home  as  the 
first  of  the  war  veterans.  It  was  rumored  that  he  surprised 
Vida  by  coming  unannounced,  that  Vida  fainted  when  she  saw 
him,  and  for  a  night  and  day  would  not  share  him  with  the 
town.  When  Carol  saw  them  Vida  was  hazy  about  everything 
except  Raymie,  and  never  went  so  far  from  him  that  she 
could  not  slip  her  hand  under  his.  Without  understanding 
why,  Carol  was  troubled  by  this  intensity.  And  Raymie — 
surely  this  was  not  Raymie,  but  a  sterner  brother  of  his,  this 
man  with  the  tight  blouse,  the  shoulder  emblems,  the  trim  legs 
in  boots.  His  face  seemed  different,  his  lips  more  tight.  He 
was  not  Raymie;  he  was  Major  Wutherspoon;  and  Kennicott 
and  Carol  were  grateful  when  he  divulged  that  Paris  wasn't  half 
as  pretty  as  Minneapolis,  that  all  of  the  American  soldiers  had 
been  distinguished  by  their  morality  when  on  leave.  Kennicott 
was  respectful  as  he  inquired  whether  the  Germans  had  good 
aeroplanes,  and  what  a  salient  was,  and  a  cootie,  and  Going 
West. 

In  a  week  Major  Wutherspoon  was  made  full  manager  of  the 
Bon  Ton.  Harry  Haydock  was  going  to  devote  himself  to  the 
half-dozen  branch  stores  which  he  was  establishing  at  cross 
roads  hamlets.  Harry  would  be  the  town's  rich  man  in  the 
coming  generation,  and  Major  Wutherspoon  would  rise  with 
him,  and  Vida  was  jubilant,  though  she  was  regretful  at  having 
to  give  up  most  of  her  Red  Cross  work.  Ray  still  needed 
nursing,  she  explained. 

When  Carol  saw  him  with  his  uniform  off,  in  a  pepper-and- 


MAIN    STREET  413 

salt  suit  and  a  new  gray  felt  hat,  she  was  disappointed.    He 
was  not  Major  Wutherspoon;  he  was  Raymie. 

For  a  month  small  boys  followed  him  down  the  street,  and 
everybody  called  him  Major,  but  that  was  presently  shortened 
to  Maje,  and  the  small  boys  did  not  look  up  from  their  marbles 
as  he  went  by. 


in 

The  town  was  booming,  as  a  result  of  the  war  price  of  wheat. 

The  wheat  money  did  not  remain  in  the  pockets  of  the 
farmers;  the  towns  existed  to  take  care  of  all  that.  Iowa 
farmers  were  selling  their  land  at  four  hundred  dollars  an  acre 
and  coming  into  Minnesota.  But  whoever  bought  or  sold 
or  mortgaged,  the  townsmen  invited  themselves  to  the  feast — 
millers,  real-estate  men,  lawyers,  merchants,  and  Dr.  Will 
Kennicott.  They  bought  land  at  a  hundred  and  fifty,  sold  it 
next  day  at  a  hundred  and  seventy,  and  bought  again.  In 
three  months  Kennicott  made  seven  thousand  dollars,  which 
was  rather  more  than  four  times  as  much  as  society  paid  him 
for  healing  the  sick. 

In  early  summer  began  a  "campaign  of  boosting."  'Pid 
Commercial  Club  decided  that  Gopher  Prairie  was  no>  onfcy  a 
wheat-center  but  also  the  perfect  site  for  factories,  summer 
cottages,  and  state  institutions.  In  charge  of  tfcfc  compaign  was 
Mr.  James  Blausser,  who  had  recently  come  to  town  to 
speculate  in  land.  Mr.  Blausser  was  known  as  a  Hustler.  He 
liked  to  be  called  Honest  Jim.  He  was  a  bulky,  gauche,  noisy, 
humorous  man,  with  narrow  eyes,  a  rustic  complexion,  large 
red  hands,  and  brilliant  clothes.  He  was  attentive  to  all 
women.  He  was  the  first  man  in  town  who  had  not  been 
sensitive  enough  to  feel  Carol's  aloofness.  He  put  his  arm 
about  her  shoulder  while  he  condescended  to  Kennicott,  "  Nice 
lil  wifey,  I'll  say,  doc,"  and  when  she  answered,  not  warmly, 
"  Thank  you  very  much  for  the  imprimatur"  he  blew  on  her 
neck,  and  did  not  know  that  he  had  been  insulted. 

He  was  a  layer-on  of  hands.  He  never  came  to  the  house 
without  trying  to  paw  her.  He  touched  her  arm,  let  his  fist 
brush  her  side.  She  hated  the  man,  and  she  was  afraid  of 
him.  She  wondered  if  he  had  heard  of  Erik,  and  was  taking 
advantage.  She  spoke  ill  of  him  at  home  and  in  public  places, 
but  Kennicott: and  the  other  powers  insisted,  "Maybe  he  is 


4i4  MAIN    STREET 

kind  of  a  roughneck,  but  you  got  to  hand  it  to  him;  he's  got 
more  git-up-and-git  than  any  fellow  that  ever  hit  this  burg. 
And  he's  pretty  cute,  too.  Hear  what  he  said  to  old  Ezra? 
Chucked  him  in  the  ribs  and  said,  *  Say,  boy,  what  do  you 
want  to  go  to  Denver  for?  Wait  '11  I  get  time  and  I'll  move 
the  mountains  here.  Any  mountain  will  be  tickled  to  death 
to  locate  here  once  we  get  the  White  Way  in!  ' 

The  town  welcomed  Mr.  Blausser  as  fully  as  Carol  snubbed 
him.  He  was  the  guest  of  honor  at  the  Commercial  Club 
Banquet  at  the  Minniemashie  House,  an  occasion  for  menus 
printed  in  gold  (but  injudiciously  proof-read),  for  free  cigars, 
soft  damp  slabs  of  Lake  Superior  whitefish  served  as  fillet  of 
sole,  drenched  cigar-ashes  gradually  filling  the  saucers  of  coffee 
cups,  and  oratorical  references  to  Pep,  Punch,  Go,  Vigor,  Enter 
prise,  Red  Blood,  He-Men,  Fair  Women,  God's  Country,  James 
J.  Hill,  the  Blue  Sky,  the  Green  Fields,  the  Bountiful  Harvest, 
Increasing  Population,  Fair  Return  on  Investments,  Alien 
Agitators  Who  Threaten  the  Security  of  Our  Institutions,  the 
Hearthstone  the  Foundation  of  the  State,  Senator  Knute 
Nelson,  One  Hundred  Per  Cent.  Americanism,  and  Pointing 
with  Pride. 

Harry  Haydock,  as  chairman,  introduced  Honest  Jim 
Blausser.  "  And  I  am  proud  to  say,  my  fellow  citizens,  that 
in  his  brief  stay  here  Mr.  Blausser  has  become  my  warm 
personal  friend  as  well  as  my  fellow  booster,  and  I  advise  you 
all  to  very  carefully  attend  to  the  hints  of  a  man  who  knows 
how  to  achieve." 

Mr.  Blausser  reared  up  like  an  elephant  with  a  camel's  neck 
— red  faced,  red  eyed,  heavy  fisted,  slightly  belching — a  born 
leader,  divinely  intended  to  be  a  congressman  but  deflected  to 
the  more  lucrative  honors  of  real-estate.  He  smiled  on  his 
warm  personal  friends  and  fellow  boosters,  and  boomed: 

"  I  certainly  was  astonished  in  the  streets  of  our  lovely  little 
city,  the  other  day.  I  met  the  meanest  kind  of  critter  that 
God  ever  made — meaner  than  the  horned  toad  or  the  Texas 
lallapaluza!  (Laughter.)  And  do  you  know  what  the  animile 
was?  He  was  a  knocker!  (Laughter  and  applause.) 

"  I  want  to  tell  you  good  people,  and  it's  just  as  sure  as 
God  made  little  apples,  the  thing  that  distinguishes  our  Amer 
ican  commonwealth  from  the  pikers  and  tin-horns  in  other 
countries  is  our  Punch.  You  take  a  genuwine,  honest-to-God 
homo  Americanibus  and  there  ain't  anything  he's  afraid  to 


MAIN   STREET  415 

tackle.  Snap  and  speed  are  his  middle  name!  He'll  put  her 
across  if  he  has  to  ride  from  hell  to  breakfast,  and  believe  me, 
I'm  mighty  good  and  sorry  for  the  boob  that's  so  unlucky  as  to 
get  in  his  way,  because  that  poor  slob  is  going  to  wonder  where 
he  was  at  when  Old  Mr.  Cyclone  hit  town!  (Laughter.) 

"  Now,  frien's,  there's  some  folks  so  yellow  and  small  and 
so  few  in  the  pod  that  they  go  to  work  and  claim  that  those 
of  us  that  have  the  big  vision  are  off  our  trolleys.  They  say 
we  can't  make  Gopher  Prairie,  God  bless  her!  just  as  big  as 
Minneapolis  or  St.  Paul  or  Duluth.  But  lemme  tell  you  right 
here  and  now  that  there  ain't  a  town  under  the  blue  canopy 
of  heaven  that's  got  a  better  chance  to  take  a  running  jump 
and  go  scooting  right  up  into  the  two-hundred-thousand  class 
than  little  old  G.  P.!  And  if  there's  anybody  that's  got  such 
cold  kismets  that  he's  afraid  to  tag  after  Jim  Blausser  on  the 
Big  Going  Up,  then  we  don't  want  him  here!  Way  I  figger  it, 
you  folks  are  just  patriotic  enough  so  that  you  ain't  going  to 
stand  for  any  guy  sneering  and  knocking  his  own  town,  no 
matter  how  much  of  a  smart  Aleck  he  is — and  just  on  the  side 
I  want  to  add  that  this  Farmers'  Nonpartisan  League  and  the 
whole  bunch  of  socialists  are  right  in  the  same  category,  orr 
as  the  fellow  says,  in  the  same  scategory,  meaning  This  Way 
Out,  Exit,  Beat  It  While  the  Going's  Good,  This  Means  You, 
for  all  knockers  of  prosperity  and  the  rights  of  property! 

"  Fellow  citizens,  there's  a  lot  of  folks,  even  right  here  in  this 
fair  state,  fairest  and  richest  of  all  the  glorious  union,  that 
stand  up  on  their  hind  legs  and  claim  that  the  East  and  Europe 
put  it  all  over  the  golden  Northwestland.  Now  let  me  nail 
that  lie  right  here  and  now.  '  Ah-ha,'  says  they,  *  so  Jim 
Blausser  is  claiming  that  Gopher  Prairie  is  as  good  a  place 
to  live  in  as  London  and  Rome  and — and  all  the  rest  of  the  Big 
Burgs,  is  he?  How  does  the  poor  fish  know?  '  says  they.  Well, 
I'll  tell  you  how  I  know!  I've  seen  'em!  I've  done  Europe 
from  soup  to  nuts!  They  can't  spring  that  stuff  on  Jim 
Blausser  and  get  away  with  it!  And  let  me  tell  you  that  the 
only  live  thing  in  Europe  is  our  boys  that  are  fighting  there 
now!  London — I  spent  three  days,  sixteen  straight  hours  a 
day,  giving  London  the  once-over,  and  let  me  tell  you  that  it's 
nothing  but  a  bunch  of  fog  and  out-of-date  buildings  that  no 
live  American  burg  would  stand  for  one  minute.  You  may 
not  believe  it,  but  there  ain't  one  first-class  skyscraper  iu  the 
whole  works.  And  the  same  thing  goes  for  that  crowd  of  crabs 


416  MAIN   STREET 

and  snobs  Down  East,  and  next  time  you  hear  some  zob 
from  Yahooville-on-the-Hudson  chewing  the  rag  and  bulling 
and  trying  to  get  your  goat,  you  tell  him  that  no  two-fisted 
enterprising  Westerner  would  have  New  York  for  a  gift! 

"  Now  the  point  of  this  is:  I'm  not  only  insisting  that  Gopher 
Prairie  is  going  to  be  Minnesota's  pride,  the  brightest  ray  in  the 
glory  of  the  North  Star  State,  but  also  and  furthermore  that 
it  is  right  now,  and  still  more  shall  be,  as  good  a  place  to  live 
in,  and  love  in,  and  bring  up  the  Little  Ones  in,  and  it's  got 
as  much  refinement  and  culture,  as  any  burg  on  the  whole 
bloomin'  expanse  of  God's  Green  Footstool,  and  that  goes,  get 
me,  that  goes!  " 

Half  an  hour  later  Chairman  Haydock  moved  a  vote  of 
thanks  to  Mr.  Blausser. 

The  boosters'  campaign  was  on. 

The  town  sought  that  efficient  and  modern  variety  of  fame 
which  is  known  as  "  publicity."  The  band  was  reorganized, 
and  provided  by  the  Commercial  Club  with  uniforms  of  purple 
and  gold.  The  amateur  baseball-team  hired  a  semi-professional 
pitcher  from  Des  Moines,  and  made  a  schedule  of  games  with 
every  town  for  fifty  miles  about.  The  citizens  accompanied 
it  as  "  rooters,"  in  a  special  car,  with  banners  lettered  "  Watch 
Gopher  Prairie  Grow,"  and  with  the  band  playing  "  Smile, 
Smile,  Smile."  Whether  the  team  won  or  lost  the  Dauntless 
loyally  shrieked,  "Boost,  Boys,  and  Boost  Together— Put 
Gopher  Prairie  on  the  Map — Brilliant  Record  of  Our  Matchless 
Team." 

Then,  glory  of  glories,  the  town  put  in  a  White  Way.  White 
Ways  were  in  fashion  in  the  Middlewest.  They  were  composed 
of  ornamented  posts  with  clusters  of  high-powered  electric 
lights  along  two  or  three  blocks  on  Main  Street.  The  Dauntless 
confessed:  "White  Way  Is  Installed — Town  Lit  Up  Like 
Broadway — Speech  by  Hon.  James  Blausser — Come  On  You 
Twin  Cities— Our  Hat  Is  In  the  Ring." 

The  Commercial  Club  issued  a  booklet,  prepared  by  a  great 
and  expensive  literary  person  from  a  Minneapolis  advertising 
agency,  a  red-headed  young  man  who  smoked  cigarettes. in  a 
long  amber  holder.  Carol  read  the  booklet  with  a  certain 
wonder.  She  learned  that  Plover  and  Minniemashie  Lakes 
were  world-famed  for  their  beauteous  wooded  shores  and  gamey 
pike  and  bass  not  to  be  equalled  elsewhere  in  the  entire  coun 
try;  that  the  residences  of  Gopher  Prairie  were  models  of 


MAIN    STREET  417 

dignity,  comfort,  and  culture,  with  lawns  and  gardens  known 
far  and  wide;  that  the  Gopher  Prairie  schools  and  public 
library,  in  its  neat  and  commodious  building,  were  celebrated 
throughout  the  state;  that  the  Gopher  Prairie  mills  made  the 
best  flour  in  the  country ;  that  the  surrounding  farm  lands  were 
renowned,  where'er  men  ate  bread  and  butter,  for  their  in 
comparable  No.  i  Hard  Wheat  and  Holstein-Friesian  cattle; 
and  that  the  stores  in  Gopher  Prairie  compared  favorably  with 
Minneapolis  and  Chicago  in  their  abundance  of  luxuries  and 
necessities  and  the  ever-courteous  attention  of  the  skilled 
clerks.  She  learned,  in  brief,  that  this  was  the  one  Logical 
Location  for  factories  and  wholesale  houses. 

"  There's  where  I  want  to  go;  to  that  model  town  Gopher 
Prairie,"  said  Carol. 

Kennicott  was  triumphant  when  the  Commercial  Club  did 
capture  one  small  shy  factory  which  planned  to  make  wooden 
automobile-wheels,  but  when  Carol  saw  the  promoter  she  could 
not  feel  that  his  coming  much  mattered — and  a  year  aftert 
when  he  failed,  she  could  not  be  very  sorrowful^ 

Retired  farmers  were  moving  into  town.  The  price  of  lots 
had  increased  a  third.  But  Carol  could  discover  no  more 
pictures  nor  interesting  food  nor  gracious  voices  nor  amusing 
conversation  nor  questing  minds.  She  could,  she  asserted, 
endure  a  shabby  but  modest  town;  the  town  shabby  and 
egomaniac  she  could  not  endure.  She  could  nurse  Champ 
Perry,  and  warm  to  the  neighborliness  of  Sam  Clark,  but  she 
could  not  sit  applauding  Honest  Jim  Blausser.  Kennicott  had 
begged  her,  in  courtship  days,  to  convert  the  town  to  beauty. 
If  it  was  now  as  beautiful  as  Mr.  Blausser  and  the  Dauntless 
said,  then  her  work  was  over,  and  she  could  go. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 


KENNICOTT  was  not  so  inhumanly  patient  that  he  could  con 
tinue  to  forgive  Carol's  heresies,  to  woo  her  as  he  had  on  the 
venture  to  California.  She  tried  to  be  inconspicuous,  but  she 
was  betrayed  by  her  failure  to  glow  over  the  boosting. 
Kennicott  believed  in  it;  demanded  that  she  say  patriotic 
things  about  the  White  Way  and  the  new  factory.  He  snorted, 
"  By  golly,  I've  done  all  I  could,  and  now  I  expect  you  to 
play  the  game.  Here  you  been  complaining  for  years  about 
us  being  so  poky,  and  now  when  Blausser  comes  along  and  does 
stir  up  excitement  and  beautify  the  town  like  you've  always 
wanted  somebody  to,  why,  you  say  he's  a  roughneck,  and  you 
won't  jump  on  the  band-wagon." 

Once,  when  Kennicott  announced  at  noon-dinner,  "  What  do 
you  know  about  this!  They  say  there's  a  chance  we  may 
get  another  factory — cream-separator  works!  "  he  added,  "  You 
might  try  to  look  interested,  even  if  you  ain't!  "  The  baby 
was  frightened  by  the  Jovian  roar;  ran  wailing  to  hide  his 
face  in  Carol's  lap;  and  Kennicott  had  to  make  himself  humble 
and  court  both  mother  and  child.  The  dim  injustice  of  not 
being  understood  even  by  his  son  left  him  irritable.  He  felt 
injured. 

An  event  which  did  not  directly  touch  them  brought  down 
his  wrath. 

In  the  early  autumn,  news  came  from  Wakamin  that  the 
sheriff  had  forbidden  an  organizer  for  the  National  Non- 
partisan  League  to  speak  anywhere  in  the  county.  The  or 
ganizer  had  defied  the  sheriff,  and  announced  that  in  a  few 
days  he  would  address  a  farmers'  political  meeting.  That 
night,  the  news  ran,  a  mob  of  a  hundred  business  men  led  by 
the  sheriff — the  tame  village  street  and  the  smug  village  faces 
ruddled  by  the  light  of  bobbing  lanterns,  the  mob  flowing  be 
tween  the  squatty  rows  of  shops — had  taken  the  organizer 
from  his  hotel,  ridden  him  on  a  fence-rail,  put  him  on  a 
freight  train,  and  warned  him  not  to  return. 

418 


MAIN   STREET  419 

The  story  was  threshed  out  in  Dave  Dyer's  drug  store,  wiUr 
Sam  Clark,  Kennicott,  and  Carol  present. 

"  That's  the  way  to  treat  those  fellows — only  they  oughl 
to  have  lynched  him!  "  declared  Sam,  and  Kennicott  and  Dave 
Dyer  joined  in  a  proud  "  You  bet!  " 

Carol  walked  out  hastily,  Kennicott  observing  her. 

Through  supper-time  she  knew  that  he  was  bubbling  and 
would  soon  boil  over.  When  the  baby  was  abed,  and  they  sat 
composedly  in  canvas  chairs  on  the  porch,  he  experimented, 
"  I  had  a  hunch  you  thought  Sam  was  kind  of  hard  on  that 
fellow  they  kicked  out  of  Wakamin." 

"  Wasn't  Sam  rather  needlessly  heroic?  " 

"  All  these  organizers,  yes,  and  a  whole  lot  of  the  German 
and  Squarehead  farmers  themselves,  they're  seditious  as  the 
devil — disloyal,  non-patriotic,  pro-German  pacifists,  that's 
what  they  are!  " 

"  Did  this  organizer  say  anything  pro-German?  " 

"  Not  on  your  life!  They  didn't  give  him  a  chance!  "  His 
laugh  was  stagey. 

"  So  the  whole  thing  was  illegal — and  led  by  the  sheriff! 
Precisely  how  do  you  expect  these  aliens  to  obey  your  law  if 
the  officer  of  the  law  teaches  them  to  break  it?  Is  it  a  new 
kind  of  logic?  " 

"  Maybe  it  wasn't  exactly  regular,  but  what's  the  odds? 
They  knew  this  fellow  would  try  to  stir  up  trouble.    When 
ever  it  comes  right  down  to  a  question  of  defending  American 
ism  and  our  constitutional  rights,  it's  justifiable  to  set  aside 
ordinary  procedure." 

"  What  editorial  did  he  get  that  from?  "  she  wondered,  as 
she  protested,  "  See  here,  my  beloved,  why  can't  you  Tories 
declare  war  honestly?  You  don't  oppose  this  organizer  be 
cause  you  think  he's  seditious  but  because  you're  afraid  that 
the  farmers  he  is  organizing  will  deprive  you  townsmen  of  the 
money  you  make  out  of  mortgages  and  wheat  and  shops. 
Of  course,  since  we're  at  war  with  Germany,  anything  that  any 
one  of  us  doesn't  like  is  *  pro-German,'  whether  it's  business 
competition  or  bad  music.  If  we  were  fighting  England, 
you'd  call  the  radicals  '  pro-English.'  When  this  war  is  over, 
I  suppose  you'll  be  calling  them  '  red  anarchists.'  What  an 
eternal  art  it  is — such  a  glittery  delightful  art — finding  hard 
names  for  our  opponents!  How  we  do  sanctify  our  efforts  to 
keep  them  from  getting  the  holy  dollars  we  want  for  ourselves ' 


420  MAIN   STREET 

The  churches  have  always  done  it,  and  the  political  orators — 
and  I  suppose  I  do  it  when  I  call  Mrs.  Bogart  a  *  Puritan  '  and 
Mr.  Stowbody  a  '  capitalist.'  But  you  business  men  are  going 
to  beat  all  the  rest  of  us  at  it,  with  your  simple-hearted, 
energetic,  pompous " 

She  got  so  far  only  because  Kennicott  was  slow  in  shaking 
off  respect  for  her.  Now  he  bayed: 

"  That'll  be  about  all  from  you!  I've  stood  for  your  sneer 
ing  at  this  town,  and  saying  how  ugly  and  dull  it  is.  I've  stood 
for  your  refusing  to  appreciate  good  fellows  like  Sam.  I've 
even  stood  for  your  ridiculing  our  Watch  Gopher  Prairie  Grow 
campaign.  But  one  thing  I'm  not  going  to  stand:  I'm  not 
going  to  stand  my  own  wife  being  seditious.  You  can  camou 
flage  all  you  want  to,  but  you  know  darn  well  that  these 
radicals,  as  you  call  'em,  are  opposed  to  the  war,  and  let  me 
tell  you  right  here  and  now,  and  you  and  all  these  long-haired 
men  and  short-haired  women  can  beef  all  you  want  to,  but 
we're  going  to  take  these  fellows,  and  if  they  ain't  patriotic, 
we're  going  to  make  them  be  patriotic.  And — Lord  knows 
I  never  thought  I'd  have  to  say  this  to  my  own  wife — but  if 
you  go  defending  these  fellows,  then  the  same  thing  applies  to 
you!  Next  thing,  I  suppose  you'll  be  yapping  about  free 
speech.  Free  speech!  There's  too  much  free  speech  and  free 
gas  and  free  beer  and  free  love  and  all  the  rest  of  your  damned 
mouthy  freedom,  and  if  I  had  my  way  I'd  make  you  folks  live 
up  to  the  established  rules  of  decency  even  if  I  had  to  take 
you " 

"Will!  "  She  was  not  timorous  now.  "Am  I  pro-German 
if  I  fail  to  throb  to  Honest  Jim  Blausser,  too?  Let's  have  my 
whole  duty  as  a  wife!  " 

He  was  grumbling,  "  The  whole  thing's  right  in  line  with 
the  criticism  you've  always  been  making.  Might  have  known 
you'd  oppose  any  decent  constructive  work  for  the  town  or 
for " 

"You're  right.  All  I've  done  has  been  in  line.  I  don't 
belong  to  Gopher  Prairie.  That  isn't  meant  as  a  con 
demnation  of  Gopher  Prairie,  and  it  may  be  a  condemnation 
of  me.  All  right!  I  don't  care!  I  don't  belong  here,  and 
I'm  going.  I'm  not  asking  permission  any  more.  I'm  simply 
going." 

He  grunted.  "  Do  you  mind  telling  me,  if  it  isn't  too  much 
trouble,  how  long  you're  going  for?  " 


MAIN   STREET  421 

"I  don't  know.  Perhaps  for  a  year.  Perhaps  for  a  life 
time." 

"  I  see.  Well,  of  course,  I'll  be  tickled  to  death  to  sell  out 
my  practise  and  go  anywhere  you  say.  Would  you  like  to  have 
me  go  with  you  to  Paris  and  study  art,  maybe,  and  wear  vel 
veteen  pants  and  a  woman's  bonnet,  and  live  on  spaghetti?  " 

"No,  I  think  we  can  save  you  that  trouble.  You  don't 
quite  understand.  I  am  going — I  really  am — and  alone  1  I've 
got  to  find  out  what  my  work  is " 

"Work?  Work?  Sure!  That's  the  whole  trouble  with 
you!  You  haven't  got  enough  work  to  do.  If  you  had  five 
kids  and  no  hired  girl,  and  had  to  help  with  the  chores  and 
separate  the  cream,  like  these  farmers'  wives,  then  you  wouldn't 
be  so  discontented." 

"I  know.  That's  what  most  men — and  women — like  you 
would  say.  That's  how  they  would  explain  all  I  am  and  all 
I  want.  And  I  shouldn't  argue  with  them.  These  business 
men,  from  their  crushing  labors  of  sitting  in  an  office  seven 
hours  a  day,  would  calmly  recommend  that  I  have  a  dozen 
children.  As  it  happens,  I've  done  that  sort  of  thing.  There've 
been  a  good  many  times  when  we  hadn't  a  maid,  and  I  did 
all  the  housework,  and  cared  for  Hugh,  and  went  to  Red  Cross, 
and  did  it  all  very  efficiently .  I'm  a  good  cook  and  a  good 
sweeper,  and  you  don't  dare  say  I'm  not  I  " 

«  N-no,  you're " 

u  But  was  I  more  happy  when  I  was  drudging?  I  was  not. 
I  was  just  bedraggled  and  unhappy.  It's  work — but  not  my 
work.  I  could  run  an  office  or  a  library,  or  nurse  and  teach 
children.  But  solitary  dish-washing  isn't  enough  to  satisfy  me 
— or  many  other  women.  We're  going  to  chuck  it.  We're 
going  to  wash  'em  by  machinery,  and  come  out  and  play  with 
you  men  in  the  offices  and  clubs  and  politics  you've  cleverly 
kept  for  yourselves!  Oh,  we're  hopeless,  we  dissatisfied 
women!  Then  why  do  you  want  to  have  us  about  the  place, 
to  fret  you?  So  it's  for  your  sake  that  I'm  going!  " 

"  Of  course  a  little  thing  like  Hugh  makes  no  difference!  " 

"  Yes,  all  the  difference.  That's  why  I'm  going  to  take  him 
with  me." 

"  Suppose  I  refuse?  " 

"  You  won't!  " 

Forlornly,  "  Uh Carrie,  what  the  devil  is  it  you  want, 

anyway?  " 


x 


422  MAIN   STREET 

"  Oh,  conversation!  No,  it's  much  more  than  that.  I  think 
it's  a  greatness  of  life — a  refusal  to  be  content  with  even  the 
healthiest  mud." 

"  Don't  you  know  that  nobody  ever  solved  a  problem  by 
running  away  from  it?  " 

"  Perhaps.  Only  I  choose  to  make  my  own  definition  of 

*  running  away.'  I  don't  call Do  you  realize  how  big  a 

world  there  is  beyond  this  Gopher  Prairie  where  you'd  keep 
me  all  my  life?  It  may  be  that  some  day  I'll  come  back,  but 
not  till  I  can  bring  something  more  than  I  have  now.  And 
even  if  I  am  cowardly  and  run  away — all  right,  call  it  cowardly, 
call  me  anything  you  want  to!  I've  been  ruled  too  long  by 
fear  of  being  called  things.  I'm  going  away  to  be  quiet  and 
think.  I'm — I'm  going!  I  have  a  right  to  my  own  life." 

"  So  have  I  to  mine!  " 

"Well?" 

"  I  have  a  right  to  my  life — and  you're  it,  you're  my  life! 
You've  made  yourself  so.  I'm  damned  if  I'll  agree  to  all  your 
freak  notions,  but  I  will  say  I've  got  to  depend  on  you.  Never 
thought  of  that  complication,  did  you,  in  this  '  off  to  Bohemia, 
and  express  yourself,  and  free  love,  and  live  your  own  life' 
stuff!  " 

"  You  have  a  right  to  me  if  you  can  keep  me.    Can  you?  " 

He  moved  uneasily. 

n 

For  a  month  they  discussed  it.  They  hurt  each  other  very 
much,  and  sometimes  they  were  close  to  weeping,  and  invariably 
he  used  banal  phrases  about  her  duties  and  she  used  phrases 
quite  as  banal  about  freedom,  and  through  it  all,  her  discovery 
that  she  really  could  get  away  from  Main  Street  was  as  sweet 
as  the  discovery  of  love.  Kennicott  never  consented  definitely. 
At  most  he  agreed  to  a  public  theory  that  she  was  "  going  to 
take  a  short  trip  and  see  what  the  East  was  like  in  war 
time." 

She  set  out  for  Washington  in  October — just  before  the 
war  ended. 

She  had  determined  on  Washington  because  it  was  less  in 
timidating  than  the  obvious  New  York,  because  she  hoped  to 
find  streets  in  which  Hugh  could  play,  and  because  in  the  stress 
of  war-work,  with  its  demand  for  thousands  of  temporary 
clerks,  she  could  be  initiated  into  the  world  of  offices. 


MAIN   STREET  423 

Hugh  was  to  go  with  her,  despite  the  wails  and  rather  ex 
tensive  comments  of  Aunt  Bessie. 

She  wondered  if  she  might  not  encounter  Erik  in  the  East, 
but  it  was  a  chance  thought,  soon  forgotten. 

in 

The  last  thing  she  saw  on  the  station  platform  was  Kenni- 
cott,  faithfully  waving  his  hand,  his  face  so  full  of  uncompre 
hending  loneliness  that  he  could  not  smile  but  only  twitch  up 
his  lips.  She  waved  to  him  as  long  as  she  could,  and  when 
he  was  lost  she  wanted  to  leap  from  the  vestibule  and  run 
back  to  him.  She  thought  of  a  hundred  tendernesses  she  had 
neglected. 

She  had  her  freedom,  and  it  was  empty.  The  moment  was 
not  the  highest  of  her  life,  but  the  lowest  and  most  desolate, 
which  was  altogether  excellent,  for  instead  of  slipping  down 
ward  she  began  to  climb. 

She  sighed,  "  I  couldn't  do  this  if  it  weren't  for  Will's  kind 
ness,  his  giving  me  money."    But  a  second  after:    "  I  wonder    > 
how  many  women  would  always  stay  home  if  they  had  the 
money?  " 

Hugh  complained,  "Notice  me,  mummy!  "  He  was  beside 
her  on  the  red  plush  seat  of  the  day-coach;  a  boy  of  three 
and  a  half.  "  I'm  tired  of  playing  train.  Let's  play  something 
else.  Let's  go  see  Auntie  Bogart." 

"  Oh,  no!    Do  you  really  like  Mrs.  Bogart?  " 

"Yes.  She  gives  me  cookies  and  she  tells  me  about  the 
Dear  Lord.  You  never  tell  me  about  the  Dear  Lord.  Why 
don't  you  tell  me  about  the  Dear  Lord?  Auntie  Bogart  says 
I'm  going  to  be  a  preacher.  Can  I  be  a  preacher?  Can 
I  preach  about  the  Dear  Lord?  " 

"  Oh,  please  wait  till  my  generation  has  stopped  rebelling 
before  yours  starts  in!  " 

"  What's  a  generation?  " 

"  It's  a  ray  in  the  illumination  of  the  spirit." 

"  That's  foolish."  He  was  a  serious  and  literal  person,  and 
rather  humorless.  She  kissed  his  frown,  and  marveled: 

"  I  am  running  away  from  my  husband,  after  liking  a 
Swedish  ne'er-do-well  and  expressing  immoral  opinions,  just 
as  in  a  romantic  story.  And  my  own  son  reproves  me  because 
I  haven't  given  nun  religious  instruction.  But  the  story 


424  MAIN   STREET 

doesn't  go  right.  I'm  neither  groaning  nor  being  dramatically 
saved.  I  keep  on  running  away,  and  I  enjoy  it.  I'm  mad 
with  joy  over  it.  Gopher  Prairie  is  lost  back  there  in  the 
dust  and  stubble,  and  I  look  forward " 

She  continued  it  to  Hugh:  "  Darling,  do  you  know  what 
mother  and  you  are  going  to  find  beyond  the  blue  horizon 
rim?  " 

"  What?  "  flatly. 

"  We're  going  to  find  elephants  with  golden  howdahs  from 
which  peep  young  maharanees  with  necklaces  of  rubies,  and  a 
dawn  sea  colored  like  the  breast  of  a  dove,  and  a  white  and 
green  house  filled  with  books  and  silver  tea-sets." 

"  And  cookies?  " 

"  Cookies?  Oh,  most  decidedly  cookies.  We've  had  enough 
of  bread  and  porridge.  We'd  get  sick  on  too  many  cookies, 
but  ever  so  much  sicker  on  no  cookies  at  all." 

"  That's  foolish." 

"  It  is,  O  male  Kennicott!  " 

"Huh!  "  said  Kennicott  II,  and  went  to  sleep  on  her 
shoulder. 

IV 

The  theory  of  the  Dauntless  regarding  Carol's  absence: 

Mrs.  Will  Kennicott  and  son  Hugh  left  on  No.  24  on  Saturday 
last  for  a  stay  of  some  months  in  Minneapolis,  Chicago,  New 
York,  and  Washington.  Mrs.  Kennicott  confided  to  Ye  Scribe 
that  she  will  be  connected  with  one  of  the  multifarious  war  activities 
now  centering  in  the  Nation's  Capital  for  a  brief  period  before 
returning.  Her  countless  friends  who  appreciate  her  splendid  labors 
with  the  local  Red  Cross  realize  how  valuable  she  will  be  to  any 
war  board  with  which  she  chooses  to  become  connected.  Gopher 
Prairie  thus ^ adds  another  shining  star  to  its  service  flag,  and 
without  wishing  to  knock  any  neighboring  communities,  we  would 
like  to  know  any  town  of  anywheres  near  our  size  in  the  state 
that  has  such  a  sterling  war  record.  Another  reason  why  you'd 
better  Watch  Gopher  Prairie  Grow. 

*    *    * 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  David  Dyer,  Mrs.  Dyer's  sister,  Mrs.  Jennie  Day- 
born  of  Jackrabbit,  and  Dr.  Will  Kennicott  drove  to  Minniemashie 
on  Tuesday  for  a  delightful  picnic. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 


SHE  found  employment  in  the  Bureau  of  War  Risk  Insurance. 
Though  the  armistice  with  Germany  was  signed  a  few  weeks 
after  her  coming  to  Washington,  the  work  of  the  bureau  con 
tinued.  She  filed  correspondence  all  day;  then  she  dictated 
answers  to  letters  of  inquiry.  It  was  an  endurance  of  monot 
onous  details,  yet  she  asserted  that  she  had  found  "  real  work." 

Disillusions  she  did  have.  She  discovered  that  in  the  after 
noon,  office  routine  stretches  to  the  grave.  She  discovered  that 
an  office  is  as  full  of  cliques  and  scandals  as  a  Gopher  Prairie. 
She  discovered  that  most  of  the  women  in  the  government 
bureaus  lived  unhealthfully,  dining  on  snatches  in  their 
crammed  apartments.  But  she  also  discovered  that  business 
women  may  have  friendships  and  enmities  as  frankly  as  men, 
and  may  revel  in  a  bliss  which  no  housewife  attains — a  free 
Sunday.  It  did  not  appear  that  the  Great  World  needed  her 
inspiration,  but  she  felt  that  her  letters,  her  contact  with 
the  anxieties  of  men  and  women  all  over  the  country,  were 
a  part  of  vast  affairs,  not  confined  to  Main  Street  and  a  kitchen, 
but  linked  with  Paris,  Bangkok,  Madrid. 

She  perceived  that  she  could  do  office  work  without  losing 
any  of  the  putative  feminine  virtue  of  domesticity;  that  cook 
ing  and  cleaning,  when  divested  of  the  fussing  of  an  Aunt 
Bessie,  take  but  a  tenth  of  the  time  which,  in  a  Gopher 
Prairie,  it  is  but  decent  to  devote  to  them. 

Not  to  have  to  apologize  for  her  thoughts  to  the  Jolly  Seven 
teen,  not  to  have  to  report  to  Kennicott  at  the  end  of  the 
day  all  that  she  had  done  or  might  do,  was  a  relief  which  made 
up  for  the  office  weariness.  She  felt  that  she  was  no  longer 
one-half  of  a  marriage  but  the  whole  of  a  human  being. 


n 

Washington  gave  her  all  the  graciousness  in  which  she  had 
had  faith:  white  columns  seen  across  leafy  parks,  spacious 

425 


426  MAIN   STREET 

avenues,  twisty  alleys.  Daily  she  passed  a  dark  square  house 
with  a  hint  of  magnolias  and  a  courtyard  behind  it,  and  a  tall 
curtained  second-story  window  through  which  a  woman  was 
always  peering.  The  woman  was  mystery,  romance,  a  story 
which  told  itself  differently  every  day;  now  she  was  a  mur 
deress,  now  the  neglected  wife  of  an  ambassador.  It  was  mys 
tery  which  Carol  had  most  lacked  in  Gopher  Prairie,  where 
every  house  was  open  to  view,  where  every  person  was  but 
too  easy  to  meet,  where  there  were  no  secret  gates  opening 
upon  moors  over  which  one  might  walk  by  moss-deadened 
paths  to  strange  high  adventures  in  an  ancient  garden. 

As  she  flitted  up  Sixteenth  Street  after  a  Kreisler  recital, 
given  late  in  the  afternoon  for  the  government  clerks,  as  the 
lamps  kindled  in  spheres  of  soft  fire,  as  the  breeze  flowed  into 
the  street,  fresh  as  prairie  winds  and  kindlier,  as  she  glanced 
up  the  elm  alley  of  Massachusetts  Avenue,  as  she  was  rested 
by  the  integrity  of  the  Scottish  Rite  Temple,  she  loved  the 
city  as  she  loved  no  one  save  Hugh.  She  encountered  negro 
shanties  turned  into  studios,  with  orange  curtains  and  pots  of 
mignonette;  marble  houses  on  New  Hampshire  Avenue,  with 
butlers  and  limousines;  and  men  who  looked  like  fictional  ex 
plorers  and  aviators.  Her  days  were  swift,  and  she  knew  that 
in  her  folly  of  running  away  she  had  found  the  courage  to 
be  wise. 

She  had  a  dispiriting  first  month  of  hunting  lodgings  in  the 
crowded  city.  She  had  to  roost  in  a  hall-room  in  a  moldy 
mansion  conducted  by  an  indignant  decayed  gentlewoman, 
and  leave  Hugh  to  the  care  of  a  doubtful  nurse.  But  later 
she  made  a  home. 


in 

Her  first  acquaintances  were  the  members  of  the  Tincomb 
Methodist  Church,  a  vast  red-brick  tabernacle.  Vida  Sherwin 
had  given  her  a  letter  to  an  earnest  woman  with  eye-glasses, 
plaid  silk  waist,  and  a  belief  in  Bible  Classes,  who  introduced 
her  to  the  Pastor  and  the  Nicer  Members  of  Tincomb.  Carol 
recognized  in  Washington  as  she  had  in  California  a  trans 
planted  and  guarded  Main  Street.  Two-thirds  of  the  church- 
members  had  come  from  Gopher  Prairies.  The  church  was 
their  society  and  their  standard;  they  went  to  Sunday  service, 
Sunday  School,  Epworth  League,  missionary  lectures,  church 


MAIN   STREET  427 

suppers,  precisely  as  they  had  at  home;  they  agreed  that  am 
bassadors  and  flippant  newspapermen  and  infidel  scientists  of 
the  bureaus  were  equally  wicked  and  to  be  avoided;  and  by 
cleaving  to  Tincomb  Church  they  kept  their  ideals  from  all 
contamination. 

They  welcomed  Carol,  asked  about  her  husband,  gave  her 
advice  regarding  colic  in  babies,  passed  her  the  gingerbread 
and  scalloped  potatoes  at  church  suppers,  and  in  general  made 
her  very  unhappy  and  lonely,  so  that  she  wondered  if  she 
might  not  enlist  in  the  militant  suffrage  organization  and  be 
allowed  to  go  to  jail. 

Always  she  was  to  perceive  in  Washington  (as  doubtless  she 
would  have  perceived  in  New  York  or  London)  a  thick  streak 
of  Main  Street.  The  cautious  dullness  of  a  Gdpher  Prairie 
appeared  in  boarding-houses  where  ladylike  bureau-clerks  gos 
siped  to  polite  young  army  officers  about  the  movies;  a  thou 
sand  Sam  Clarks  and  a  few  Widow  Bogarts  were  to  be  iden 
tified  in  the  Sunday  motor  procession,  in  theater  parties,  and 
at  the  dinners  of  State  Societies,  to  which  the  emigres  from 
Texas  or  Michigan  surged  that  they  might  confirm  themselves 
in  the  faith  that  their  several  Gopher  Prairies  were  notoriously 
"  a  whole  lot  peppier  and  chummier  than  this  stuck-up  East." 

But  she  found  a  Washington  which  did  not  cleave  to  Main 
Street. 

Guy  Pollock  wrote  to  a  cousin,  a  temporary  army  captain,  a 
confiding  and  buoyant  lad  who  took  Carol  to  tea-dances,  and 
laughed,  as  she  had  always  wanted  some  one  to  laugh,  about 
nothing  in  particular.  The  captain  introduced  her  to  the  secre 
tary  of  a  congressman,  a  cynical  young  widow  with  many  ac 
quaintances  in  the  navy.  Through  her  Carol  met  commanders 
and  majors,  newspapermen,  chemists  and  geographers  and  fiscal 
experts  from  the  bureaus,  and  a  teacher  who  was  a  familiar 
of  the  militant  suffrage  headquarters.  The  teacher  took  her 
to  headquarters.  Carol  never  became  a  prominent  suffragist. 
Indeed  her  only  recognized  position  was  as  an  able  addresser 
of  envelopes.  But  she  was  casually  adopted  by  this  family 
of  friendly  women  who,  when  they  were  not  being  mobbed  or 
arrested,  took  dancing  lessons  or  went  picnicking  up  the  Chesa 
peake  Canal  or  talked  about  the  politics  of  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor. 

With  the  congressman's  secretary  and  the  teacher  Carol 
leased  a  small  flat.  Here  she  found  home,  her  own  place  and 


428  MAIN   STREET 

her  own  people.  She  had,  though  it  absorbed  most  of  her 
salary,  an  excellent  nurse  for  Hugh.  She  herself  put  him  to 
bed  and  played  with  him  on  holidays.  There  were  walks  with 
him,  there  were  motionless  evenings  of  reading,  but  chiefly 
Washington  was  associated  with  people,  scores  of  them,  sitting 
about  the  flat,  talking,  talking,  talking,  not  always  wisely  but 
always  excitedly.  It  was  not  at  all  the  "  artist's  studio  "  of 
which,  because  of  its  persistence  in  fiction,  she  had  dreamed. 
Most  of  them  were  in  offices  all  day,  and  thought  more  in 
card-catalogues  or  statistics  than  in  mass  and  color.  But  they 
played,  very  simply,  and  they  saw  no  reason  why  anything 
which  exists  cannot  also  be  acknowledged. 

She  was  sometimes  shocked  quite  as  she  had  shocked  Gopher 
Prairie  by  these  girls  with  their  cigarettes  and  elfish  knowledge. 
When  they  were  most  eager  about  Soviets  or  canoeing,  she 
listened,  longed  to  have  some  special  learning  which  would 
distinguish  her,  and  sighed  that  her  adventure  had  come  so 
late.  Kennicott  and  Main  Street  had  drained  her  self-reliance; 
the  presence  of  Hugh  made  her  feel  temporary.  Some  day — 
oh,  she'd  have  to  take  him  back  to  open  fields  and  the  right 
to  climb  about  hay-lofts. 

But  the  fact  that  she  could  never  be  eminent  among  these 
scoffing  enthusiasts  did  not  keep  her  from  being  proud  of 
them,  from  defending  them  in  imaginary  conversations  with 
Kennicott,  who  grunted  (she  could  hear  his  voice),  "  They're 
simply  a  bunch  of  wild  impractical  theorists  sittin'  round 
chewing  the  rag,"  and  "  I  haven't  got  the  time  to  chase  after 
a  lot  of  these  fool  fads;  I'm  too  busy  putting  aside  a  stake  for 
our  old  age." 

Most  of  the  men  who  came  to  the  flat,  whether  they  were 
army  officers  or  radicals  who  hated  the  army,  had  the  easy 
gentleness,  the  acceptance  of  women  without  embarrassed 
banter,  for  which  she  had  longed  in  Gopher  Prairie.  Yet  they 
seemed  to  be  as  efficient  as  the  Sam  Clarks.  She  concluded 
that  it  was  because  they  were  of  secure  reputation,  not  hemmed 
in  by  the  fire  of  provincial  jealousies.  Kennicott  had  asserted 
that  the  villager's  lack  of  courtesy  is  due  to  his  poverty. 
"We're  no  millionaire  dudes,"  he  boasted.  Yet  these  army 
and  navy  men,  these  bureau  experts,  and  organizers  of  mul 
titudinous  leagues,  were  cheerful  on  three  or  four  thousand  a 
year,  while  Kennicott  had,  outside  of  his  land  speculations, 
six  thousand  or  more,  and  Sam  had  eight. 


MAIN   STREET  429 

Nor  could  she  upon  inquiry  learn  that  many  of  this  reckless 
race  died  in  the  poorhouse.  That  institution  is  reserved  for 
men  like  Kennicott  who,  after  devoting  fifty  years  to  "  putting 
aside  a  stake,"  incontinently  invest  the  stake  in  spurious  oil- 
stocks. 


IV 

She  was  encouraged  to  believe  that  she  had  not  been  ab 
normal  in  viewing  Gopher  Prairie  as  unduly  tedious  and  slat 
ternly.  She  found  the  same  faith  not  only  in  girls  escaped 
from  domesticity  but  also  in  demure  old  ladies  who,  tragically 
deprived  of  esteemed  husbands  and  huge  old  houses,  yet 
managed  to  make  a  very  comfortable  thing  of  it  by  living  in 
small  flats  and  having  time  to  read. 

But  she  also  learned  that  by  comparison  Gopher  Prairie 
was  a  model  of  daring  color,  clever  planning,  and  frenzied 
intellectuality.  From  her  teacher-housemate  she  had  a  sardonic 
description  of  a  Middlewestern  railroad-division  town,  of  the 
same  size  as  Gopher  Prairie  but  devoid  of  lawns  and  trees,  a 
town  where  the  tracks  sprawled  along  the  cinder-scabbed 
Main  Street,  and  the  railroad  shops,  dripping  soot  from  eaves 
and  doorway,  rolled  out  smoke  in  greasy  coils. 

Other  towns  she  came  to  know  by  anecdote:  a  prairie  village 
where  the  wind  blew  all  day  long,  and  the  mud  was  two  feet 
thick  in  spring,  and  in  summer  the  flying  sand  scarred  new- 
painted  houses  and  dust  covered  the  few  flowers  set  out  in 
pots.  New  England  mill- towns  with  the  hands  living  in  rows 
of  cottages  like  blocks  of  lava.  A  rich  farming-center  in  New 
Jersey,  off  the  railroad,  furiously  pious,  ruled  by  old  men, 
unbelievably  ignorant  old  men,  sitting  about  the  grocery  talking 
of  James  G.  Blaine.  A  Southern  town,  full  of  the  magnolias 
and  white  columns  which  Carol  had  accepted  as  proof  of 
romance,  but  hating  the  negroes,  obsequious  to  the  Old 
Families.  A  Western  mining-settlement  like  a  tumor.  A  boom 
ing  semi-city  with  parks  and  clever  architects,  visited  by 
famous  pianists  and  unctuous  lecturers,  but  irritable  from  a 
struggle  between  union  labor  and  the  manufacturers'  associa 
tion,  so  that  in  even  the  gayest  of  the  new  houses  there  was  a 
ceaseless  and  intimidating  heresy-hunt. 


430  MAIN   STREET 


The  chart  which  plots  Carol's  progress  is  not  easy  to  read. 
The  lines  are  broken  and  uncertain  of  direction;  often  instead 
of  rising  they  sink  in  wavering  scrawls;  and  the  colors  are 
watery  blue  and  pink  and  the  dim  gray  of  rubbed  pencil 
marks.  A  few  lines  are  traceable. 

Unhappy  women  are  given  to  protecting  their  sensitiveness 
by  cynical  gossip,  by  whining,  by  high-church  and  new-thought 
religions,  or  by  a  fog  of  vagueness.  Carol  had  hidden  in  none 
j  of  these  refuges  from  reality,  but  she,  who  was  tender  and 
(  merry,  had  been  made  timorous  by  Gopher  Prairie.  Even  her 
flight  had  been  but  the  temporary  courage  of  panic.  The 
thing  she  gained  in  Washington  was  not  information  about 
office-systems  and  labor  unions  but  renewed  courage,  that 
amiable  contempt  called  poise.  Her  glimpse  of  tasks  involving 
millions  of  people  and  a  score  of  nations  reduced  Main  Street 
from  bloated  importance  to  its  actual  pettiness.  She  could 
never  again  be  quite  so  awed  by  the  power  with  which  she 
herself  had  endowed  the  Vidas  and  Blaussers  and  Bogarts. 

From  her  work  and  from  her  association  with  women  who 
had  organized  suffrage  associations  in  hostile  cities,  or  had 
defended  political  prisoners,  she  caught  something  of  an  im 
personal  attitude;  saw  that  she  had  been  as  touchily  personal 
as  Maud  Dyer. 

And  why,  she  began  to  ask,  did  she  rage  at  individuals?  Not 
individuals  but  institutions  are  the  enemies,  and  they  most 
afflict  the  disciples  who  the  most  generously  serve  them.  They 
insinuate  their  tyranny  under  a  hundred  guises  and  pompous 
names,  such  as  Polite  Society,  the  Family,  the  Church,  Sound 
Business,  the  Party,  the  Country,  the  Superior  White  Race; 
and  the  only  defense  against  them,  Carol  beheld,  is  unem- 
bittered  laughter. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 


SHE  had  lived  in  Washington  for  a  year.  She  was  tired  of  the 
office.  It  was  tolerable,  far  more  tolerable  than  housework,  but 
it  was  not  adventurous. 

She  was  having  tea  and  cinnamon  toast,  alone  at  a  small 
round  table  on  the  balcony  of  Rauscher's  Confiserie.  Four 
debutantes  clattered  in.  She  had  felt  young  and  dissipated, 
had  thought  rather  well  of  her  black  and  leaf-green  suit,  but 
as  she  watched  them,  thin  of  ankle,  soft  under  the  chin,  seven 
teen  or  eighteen  at  most,  smoking  cigarettes  with  the  correct 
ennui  and  talking  of  "  bedroom  farces  "  and  their  desire  to 
"  run  up  to  New  York  and  see  something  racy,"  she  became 
old  and  rustic  and  plain,  and  desirous  of  retreating  from  these 
hard  brilliant  children  to  a  life  easier  and  more  sympathetic. 
When  they  flickered  out  and  one  child  gave  orders  to  a  chauf 
feur,  Carol  was  not  a  defiant  philosopher  but  a  faded  govern 
ment  clerk  from  Gopher  Prairie,  Minnesota. 

She  started  dejectedly  up  Connecticut  Avenue.  She  stopped, 
her  heart  stopped.  Coming  toward  her  were  Harry  and  Juanita 
Haydock.  She  ran  to  them,  she  kissed  Juanita,  while  Harry 
confided,  "  Hadn't  expected  to  come  to  Washington — had  to 
go  to  New  York  for  some  buying — didn't  have  your  address 
along — just  got  in  this  morning — wondered  how  in  the  world 
we  could  get  hold  of  you." 

She  was  definitely  sorry  to  hear  that  they  were  to  leave  at 
nine  that  evening,  and  she  clung  to  them  as  long  as  she  could. 
She  took  them  to  St.  Mark's  for  dinner.  Stooped,  her  elbows 
on  the  table,  she  heard  with  excitement  that  "  Cy  Bogart  had 
the  'flu,  but  of  course  he  was  too  gol-darn  mean  to  die  of  it." 

"  Will  wrote  me  that  Mr.  Blausser  has  gone  away.  How  did 
he  get  on?  " 

"  Fine!  Fine!  Great  loss  to  the  town.  There  was  a  real 
public-spirited  fellow,  all  right!  " 

She  discovered  that  she  now  had  no  opinions  whatever  about 


432  MAIN   STREET 

Mr.  Blausser,  and  she  said  sympathetically,  "Will  you  keep 
up  the  town-boosting  campaign?  " 

Harry  fumbled,  "  Well,  we've  dropped  it  just  temporarily, 
but — sure  you  bet!  Say,  did  the  doc  write  you  about  the 
luck  B.  J.  Gougerling  had  hunting  ducks  down  in  Texas?  " 

When  the  news  had  been  told  and  their  enthusiasm  had 
slackened  she  looked  about  and  was  proud  to  be  able  to  point 
out  a  senator,  to  explain  the  cleverness  of  the  canopied  garden. 
She  fancied  that  a  man  with  dinner-coat  and  waxed  mustache 
glanced  superciliously  at  Harry's  highly  form-fitting  bright- 
brown  suit  and  Juanita's  tan  silk  frock,  which  was  doubtful  at 
the  seams.  She  glared  back,  defending  her  own,  daring  the 
world  not  to  appreciate  them. 

Then,  waving  to  them,  she  lost  them  down  the  long  train 
shed.  She  stood  reading  the  list  of  stations:  Harrisburg, 

Pittsburg,  Chicago.  Beyond  Chicago ?  She  saw  the  lakes 

and  stubble  fields,  heard  the  rhythm  of  insects  and  the  creak 
of  a  buggy,  was  greeted  by  Sam  Clark's  "  Well,  well,  how's 
the  little  lady?  " 

Nobody  in  Washington  cared  enough  for  her  to  fret  about 
her  sins  as  Sam  did. 

But  that  night  they  had  at  the  flat  a  man  just  back  from 
Finland. 


n 

She  was  on  the  Powhatan  roof  with  the  captain.    At  a  table, 
somewhat  vociferously  buying  improbable  "  soft  drinks  "  for 
two  fluffy  girls,  was  a  man  with  a  large  familiar  back. 
"Oh!     I  think  I  know  him,"  she  murmured. 
"Who?    There?    Oh,  Bresnahan,  Percy  Bresnahan." 
"  Yes.    You've  met  him?    What  sort  of  a  man  is  he?  " 
"  He's  a  good-hearted  idiot.    I  rather  like  him,  and  I  believe 
that  as  a  salesman  of  motors  he's  a  wonder.     But  he's  a 
nuisance  in  the  aeronautic  section.    Tries  so  hard  to  be  useful 
but  he  doesn't  know  anything — he  doesn't  know  anything. 
Rather  pathetic:  rich  man  poking  around  and  trying  to  be 
useful.     Do  you  want  to  speak  to  him?  " 
"  No— no— I  don't  think  so." 


MAIN   STREET  433 

in 

She  was  at  a  motion-picture  show.  The  film  was  a  highly 
advertised  and  abysmal  thing  smacking  of  simpering  hair 
dressers,  cheap  perfume,  red-plush  suites  on  the  back  streets 
of  tenderloins,  and  complacent  fat  women  chewing  gum.  It 
pretended  to  deal  with  the  life  of  studios.  The  leading  man  did 
a  portrait  which  was  a  masterpiece.  He  also  saw  visions  in 
pipe-smoke,  and  was  very  brave  and  poor  and  pure.  He  had 
ringlets,  and  his  masterpiece  was  strangely  like  an  enlarged 
photograph. 

Carol  prepared  to  leave. 

On  the  screen,  in  the  role  of  a  composer,  appeared  an  actor 
called  Eric  Valour. 

She  was  startled,  incredulous,  then  wretched.  Looking 
straight  out  afc  her,  wearing  a  beret  and  a  velvet  jacket,  was 
Erik  Valborg. 

He  had  a  pale  part,  which  he  played  neither  well  nor  badly. 

She  speculated,  "I  could  have  made  so  much  of  him " 

She  did  not  finish  her  speculation. 

She  went  home  and  read  Kennicott's  letters.  They  had 
seemed  stiff  and  undetailed,  but  now  there  strode  from  them 
a  personality,  a  personality  unlike  that  of  the  languishing 
young  man  in  the  velvet  jacket  playing  a  dummy  piano  in  a 
canvas  room. 


IV 

Kennicott  first  came  to  see  her  in  November,  thirteen  months 
after  her  arrival  in  Washington.  When  he  announced  that 
he  was  coming  she  was  not  at  all  sure  that  she  wished  to 
see  him.  She  was  glad  that  he  had  made  the  decision  him 
self. 

She  had  leave  from  the  office  for  two  days. 

She  watched  him  marching  from  the  train,  solid,  assured, 
carrying  his  heavy  suit-case,  and  she  was  diffident — he  was 
such  a  bulky  person  to  handle.  They  kissed  each  other 
questioningly,  and  said  at  the  same  time,  "  You're  looking  fine; 
how's  the  baby?  "  and  "  You're  looking  awfully  well,  dear; 
how  is  everything?  " 

He  grumbled,  "  I  don't  want  to  butt  in  on  any  plans  you've 
made  or  your  friends  or  anything,  but  if  you've  got  time  for 


434  MAIN   STREET 

it,  I'd  like  to  chase  around  Washington,  and  take  in  some 
restaurants  and  shows  and  stuff,  and  forget  work  for  a  while." 

She  realized,  in  the  taxicab,  that  he  was  wearing  a  soft 
gray  suit,  a  soft  easy  hat,  a  flippant  tie. 

"  Like  the  new  outfit?  Got  'em  in  Chicago.  Gosh,  I  hope 
they're  the  kind  you  like." 

They  spent  half  an  hour  at  the  flat,  with  Hugh.  She  was 
flustered,  but  he  gave  no  sign  of  kissing  her  again. 

As  he  moved  about  the  small  rooms  she  realized  that  he 
had  had  his  new  tan  shoes  polished  to  a  brassy  luster.  There 
was  a  recent  cut  on  his  chin.  He  must  have  shaved  on  the 
train  just  before  coming  into  Washington. 

It  was  pleasant  to  feel  how  important  she  was,  how  many 
people  she  recognized,  as  she  took  him  to  the  Capitol,  as  she 
told  him  (he  asked  and  she  obligingly  guessed)  how  many 
feet  it  was  to  the  top  of  the  dome,  as  she  pointed  out  Senator 
LaFollette  and  the  vice-president,  and  at  lunch-time  showed 
herself  an  habitue  by  leading  him  through  the  catacombs  to 
the  senate  restaurant. 

She  realized  that  he  was  slightly  more  bald.  The  familiar 
way  in  which  his  hair  was  parted  on  the  left  side  agitated 
her.  She  looked  down  at  his  hands,  and  the  fact  that  his  nails 
were  as  ill-treated  as  ever  touched  her  more  than  his  pleading 
shoe-shine. 

"  You'd  like  to  motor  down  to  Mount  Vernon  this  afternoon, 
wouldn't  you?  "  she  said. 

It  was  the  one  thing  he  had  planned.  He  was  delighted  that 
it  seemed  to  be  a  perfectly  well  bred  and  Washingtonian  thing 
to  do. 

He  shyly  held  her  hand  on  the  way,  and  told  her  the  news: 
they  were  excavating  the  basement  for  the  new  schoolbuilding, 
Vida  "  made  him  tired  the  way  she  always  looked  at  the  Maje," 
poor  Chet  Dashaway  had  been  killed  in  a  motor  acci'dent  out 
on  the  Coast.  He  did  not  coax  her  to  like  him.  At  Mount 
Vernon  he  admired  the  paneled  library  and  Washington's 
dental  tools. 

She  knew  that  he  would  want  oysters,  that  he  would  have 
heard  of  Harvey's  apropos  of  Grant  and  Elaine,  and  she  took 
him  there.  At  dinner  his  hearty  voice,  his  holiday  enjoyment 
of  everything,  turned  into  nervousness  in  his  desire  to  know 
a  number  of  interesting  matters,  such  as  whether  they  still  were 
married.  But  he  did  not  ask  questions,  and  be  said  nothing 


MAIN    STREET  435 

about  her  returning.  He  cleared  his  throat  and  observed,  "  Oh 
say,  been  trying  out  the  old  camera.  Don't  you  think  these 
are  pretty  good?  " 

He  tossed  over  to  her  thirty  prints  of  Gopher  Prairie  and 
the  country  about.  Without  defense,  she  was  thrown  into  it. 
She  remembered  that  he  had  lured  her  with  photographs  in 
courtship  days;  she  made  a  note  of  his  sameness,  his  satis 
faction  with  the  tactics  which  had  proved  good  before;  but  she 
forgot  it  in  the  familiar  places.  She  was  seeing  the  sun- 
speckled  ferns  among  birches  on  the  shore  of  Minniemashie, 
wind-rippled  miles  of  wheat,  the  porch  of  their  own  house  where 
Hugh  had  played,  Main  Street  where  she  knew  every  window 
and  every  face. 

She  handed  them  back,  with  praise  for  his  photography,  and 
he  talked  of  lenses  and  time-exposures. 

Dinner  was  over  and  they  were  gossiping  of  her  friends  at 
the  flat,  but  an  intruder  was  with  them,  sitting  back,  persistent, 
inescapable.  She  could  not  endure  it.  She  stammered: 

"  I  had  you  check  your  bag  at  the  station  because  I  wasn't 
quite  sure  where  you'd  stay.  I'm  dreadfully  sorry  we  haven't 
room  to  put  you  up  at  the  flat.  We  ought  to  have  seen  about 
a  room  for  you  before.  Don't  you  think  you  better  call  up 
the  Willard  or  the  Washington  now?  " 

He  peered  at  her  cloudily.  Without  words  he  asked,  with 
out  speech  she  answered,  whether  she  was  also  going  to  the 
Willard  or  the  Washington.  But  she  tried  to  look  as  though 
she  did  not  know  that  they  were  debating  anything  of  the 
sort.  She  would  have  hated  him  had  he  been  meek  about  it. 
But  he  was  neither  meek  nor  angry.  However  impatient  he 
may  have  been  with  her  blandness  he  said  readily: 

"  Yes,  guess  I  better  do  that.  Excuse  me  a  second.  Then 
how  about  grabbing  a  taxi  (Gosh,  isn't  it  the  limit  the  way 
these  taxi  shuffers  skin  around  a  corner?  Got  more  nerve 
driving  than  I  have!)  and  going  up  to  your  flat  for  a  while? 
Like  to  meet  your  friends — must  be  fine  women — and  I  might 
take  a  look  and  see  how  Hugh  sleeps.  Like  to  know  how  he 
breathes.  Don't  think  he  has  adenoids,  but  I  better  make  sure, 
eh?  "  He  patted  her  shoulder. 

At  the  flat  they  found  her  two  housemates  and  a  girl  who 
had  been  to  jail  for  suffrage.  Kennicott  fitted  in  surprisingly. 
He  laughed  at  the  girl's  story  of  the  humors  of  a  hunger- 
strike;  he  told  the  secretary  what  to  do  when  her  eyes  were 


436  MAIN   STREET 

tired  from  typing;  and  the  teacher  asked  him — not  as  the  hus 
band  of  a  friend  but  as  a  physician — whether  there  was  "  any 
thing  to  this  inoculation  for  colds." 

His  colloquialisms  seemed  to  Carol  no  more  lax  than  their 
habitual  slang. 

Like  an  older  brother  he  kissed  her  good-night  in  the  midst 
of  the  company. 

"  He's  terribly  nice,"  said  her  housemates,  and  waited  for 
confidences.  They  got  none,  nor  did  her  own  heart.  She  could 
find  nothing  definite  to  agonize  about.  She  felt  that  she  was 
no  longer  analyzing  and  controlling  forces,  but  swept  on  by 
them. 

He  came  to  the  flat  for  breakfast,  and  washed  the  dishes. 
That  was  her  only  occasion  for  spite.  Back  home  he  never 
thought  of  washing  dishes! 

She  took  him  to  the  obvious  "  sights  " — the  Treasury,  the 
Monument,  the  Corcoran  Gallery,  the  Pan-American  Building, 
the  Lincoln  Memorial,  with  the  Potomac  beyond  it  and  the 
Arlington  hills  and  the  columns  of  the  Lee  Mansion.  For  all 
his  willingness  to  play  there  was  over  him  a  melancholy  which 
piqued  her.  His  normally  expressionless  eyes  had  depths  to 
them  now,  and  strangeness.  As  they  walked  through  Lafayette 
Square,  looking  past  the  Jackson  statue  at  the  lovely  tranquil 
fagade  of  the  White  House,  he  sighed,  "  I  wish  I'd  had  a  shot 
at  places  like  this.  When  I  was  in  the  U.,  I  had  to  earn  part 
of  my  way,  and  when  I  wasn't  doing  that  or  studying,  I  guess 
I  was  roughhousing.  My  gang  were  a  great  bunch  for 
bumming  around  and  raising  Cain.  Maybe  if  I'd  been  caught 

early  and  sent  to  concerts  and  all  that Would  I  have 

been  what  you  call  intelligent?  " 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  don't  be  humble!  You  are  intelligent!  For 
instance,  you're  the  most  thorough  doctor " 

He  was  edging  about  something  he  wished  to  say.  He 
pounced  on  it: 

"  You  did  like  those  pictures  of  G.  P.  pretty  well,  after  all, 
didn't  you!  " 

"  Yes,  of  course." 

"  Wouldn't  be  so  bad  to  have  a  glimpse  of  the  old  town, 
would  it!  " 

"No,  it  wouldn't.  Just  as  I  was  terribly  glad  to  see  the 
Haydocks.  But  please  understand  me!  That  doesn't  mean 
that  I  withdraw  all  my  criticisms.  The  fact  that  I  might  like 


MAIN   STREET  437 

a  glimpse  of  old  friends  hasn't  any  particular  relation  to  the 

question  of  whether  Gopher  Prairie  oughtn't  to  have  festivals 

and  lamb  chops." 

Hastily,  "No,  no!     Sure  not.    I  und'stand." 

"  But  I  know  it  must  have  been  pretty  tiresome  to  have  to 

live  with  anybody  as  perfect  as  I  was." 
He  grinned.    She  liked  his  grin. 


He  was  thrilled  by  old  negro  coachmen,  admirals,  aeroplanes, 
the  building  to  which  his  income  tax  would  eventually  go,  a 
Rolls-Royce,  Lynnhaven  oysters,  the  Supreme  Court  Room, 
a  New  York  theatrical  manager  down  for  the  try-out  of  a  play, 
the  house  where  Lincoln  died,  the  cloaks  of  Italian  officers,  the 
barrows  at  which  clerks  buy  their  box-lunches  at  noon,  the 
barges  on  the  Chesapeake  Canal,  and  the  fact  that  District 
of  Columbia  cars  had  both  District  and  Maryland  licenses. 

She  resolutely  took  him  to  her  favorite  white  and  green 
cottages  and  Georgian  houses.  He  admitted  that  fanlights,  and 
white  shutters  against  rosy  brick,  were  more  homelike  than  a 
painty  wooden  box.  He  volunteered,  "  I  see  how  you  mean. 
They  make  me  think  of  these  pictures  of  an  old-fashioned 
Christmas.  Oh,  if  you  keep  at  it  long  enough  you'll  have  Sam 
and  me  reading  poetry  and  everything.  Oh  say,  d'  I  tell  you 
about  this  fierce  green  Jack  Elder's  had  his  machine  painted?  " 

VI 

They  were  at  dinner. 

He  hinted,  "  Before  you  showed  me  those  places  today, 
I'd  already  made  up  my  mind  that  when  I  built  the  new  house 
we  used  to  talk  about,  I'd  fix  it  the  way  you  wanted  it.  I'm 
pretty  practical  about  foundations  and  radiation  and  stuff  like 
that,  but  I  guess  I  don't  know  a  whole  lot  about  architecture." 

"  My  dear,  it  occurs  to  me  with  a  sudden  shock  that  I  don't 
either!  " 

"  Well — anyway — you  let  me  plan  the  garage  and  the  plumb 
ing,  and  you  do  the  rest,  if  you  ever — I  mean — if  you  ever 
want  to." 

Doubtfully,  "  That's  sweet  of  you." 

"  Look  here,  Carrie;  you  think  I'm  going  to  ask  you  to  love 


438  MAIN   STREET 

me.  I'm  not.  And  I'm  not  going  to  ask  you  to  come  back  to 
Gopher  Prairie!  " 

She  gaped. 

"  It's  been  a  whale  of  a  fight.  But  I  guess  I've  got  myself 
to  see  that  you  won't  ever  stand  G.  P.  unless  you  want  to 
come  back  to  it.  I  needn't  say  I'm  crazy  to  have  you.  But 
I  won't  ask  you.  I  just  want  you  to  know  how  I  wait  for  you. 
Every  mail  I  look  for  a  letter,  and  when  I  get  one  I'm  kind  of 
scared  to  open  it,  I'm  hoping  so  much  that  you're  coming  back. 

Evenings You  know  I  didn't  open  tie  cottage  down  at 

the  lake  at  all,  this  past  summer.  Simply  couldn't  stand  all 
the  others  laughing  and  swimming,  and  you  not  there.  I  used 
to  sit  on  the  porch,  in  town,  and  I — I  couldn't  get  over  the 
feeling  that  you'd  simply  run  up  to  the  drug  store  and  would 
be  right  back,  and  till  after  it  got  dark  I'd  catch  myself 
watching,  looking  up  the  street,  and  you  never  came,  and  the 
house  was  so  empty  and  still  that  I  didn't  like  to  go  in. 
And  sometimes  I  fell  asleep  there,  in  my  chair,  and  didn't 

wake  up  till  after  midnight,  and  the  house Oh,  the  devil ! 

Please  get  me,  Carrie.  I  just  want  you  to  know  how  welcome 
you'll  be  if  you  ever  do  come.  But  I'm  not  asking  you  to." 

«  You're It's  awfully " 

"  'Nother  thing.  I'm  going  to  be  frank.  I  haven't  always 
been  absolutely,  uh,  absolutely,  proper.  I've  always  loved  you 
more  than  anything  else  in  the  world,  you  and  the  kid.  But 
sometimes  when  you  were  chilly  to  me  I'd  get  lonely  and 
sore,  and  pike  out  and Never  intended " 

She  rescued  him  with  a  pitying,  "  It's  all  right.  Let's  forget 
it." 

"  But  before  we  were  married  you  said  if  your  husband 
ever  did  anything  wrong,  you'd  want  him  to  tell  you." 

"  Did  I?  I  can't  remember.  And  I  can't  seem  to  think.  Oh, 
my  dear,  I  do  know  how  generously  you're  trying  to  make  me 

happy.  The  only  thing  is I  can't  think.  I  don't  know 

what  I  think." 

"  Then  listen!  Don't  think!  Here's  what  I  want  you  to 
do!  Get  a  two-weeks  leave  from  your  office.  Weather's 
beginning  to  get  chilly  here.  Let's  run  down  to  Charleston 
and  Savannah  and  maybe  Florida. 

"  A  second  honeymoon?  "  indecisively. 

"No.  Don't  even  call  it  that.  Call  it  a  second  wooing. 
I  won't  ask  anything.  I  just  want  the  chance  to  chase  around 


MAIN   STREET  439 

with  you.    I  guess  I  never  appreciated  how  lucky  I  was  to 
have  a  girl  with  imagination  and  lively  feet  to  play  with. 

So Could  you  maybe  run  away  and  see  the  South  with 

me?    If  you  wanted  to,  you  could  just — you  could  just  pretend 

you  were  my  sister  and I'll  get  an  extra  nurse  for  Hughl 

I'll  get  the  best  dog-gone  nurse  in  Washington!  " 


VII 

It  was  in  the  Villa  Margherita,  by  the  palms  of  the 
Charleston  Battery  and  the  metallic  harbor,  that  her  aloofness 
melted. 

When  they  sat  on  the  upper  balcony,  enchanted  by  the 
moon  glitter,  she  cried,  "  Shall  I  go  back  to  Gopher  Prairie 
with  you?  Decide  for  me.  I'm  tired  of  deciding  and  ua 
deciding." 

"  No.  You've  got  to  do  your  own  deciding.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  in  spite  of  this  honeymoon,  I  don't  think  I  want  you  to 
come  home.  Not  yet." 

She  could  only  stare. 

"  I  want  you  to  be  satisfied  when  you  get  there.  I'll  dt> 
everything  I  can  to  keep  you  happy,  but  I'll  make  lots  of 
breaks,  so  I  want  you  to  take  time  and  think  it  over." 

She  was  relieved.  She  still  had  a  chance  to  seize  splendia 
indefinite  freedoms.  She  might  go — oh,  she'd  see  Europe,  some 
how,  before  she  was  recaptured.  But  she  also  had  a  firmer 
respect  for  Kennicott.  She  had  fancied  that  her  life  might 
make  a  story.  She  knew  that  there  was  nothing  heroic  or  ob 
viously  dramatic  in  it,  no  magic  of  rare  hours,  nor  valiant 
challenge,  but  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  was  of  some  sig 
nificance  because  she  was  commonplaceness,  the  ordinary  life 
of  the  age,  made  articulate  and  protesting.  It  had  not  occurred 
to  her  that  there  was  also  a  story  of  Will  Kennicott,  into  which 
she  entered  only  so  much  as  he  entered  into  hers;  that  he 
had  bewilderments  and  concealments  as  intricate  as  her  own, 
and  soft  treacherous  desires  for  sympathy. 

Thus  she  brooded,  looking  at  the  amazing  sea,  holding  his 
hand. 


440  MAIN   STREET 

vm 

She  was  in  Washington;  Kennicott  was  in  Gopher  Prairie, 
writing  as  dryly  as  ever  about  water-pipes  and  goose-hunting 
and  Mrs.  Fageros's  mastoid. 

She  was  talking  at  dinner  to  a  generalissima  of  suffrage. 
Should  she  return? 

The  leader  spoke  wearily: 

"  My  dear,  I'm  perfectly  selfish.  I  can't  quite  visualize  the 
needs  of  your  husband,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  your  baby 
will  do  quite  as  well  in  the  schools  here  as  in  your  barracks  at 
home." 

"  Then  you  think  I'd  better  not  go  back?  "  Carol  sounded 
disappointed. 

"  It's  more  difficult  than  that.  When  I  say  that  I'm  selfish 
I  mean  that  the  only  thing  I  consider  about  women  is  whether 
they're  likely  to  prove  useful  in  building  up  real  political  power 
for  women.  And  you?  Shall  I  be  frank?  Remember  when 
I  say '  you '  I  don't  mean  you  alone.  I'm  thinking  of  thousands 
of  women  who  come  to  Washington  and  New  York  and  Chicago 
\f  every  year,  dissatisfied  at  home  and  seeking  a  sign  in  the 
heavens — women  of  all  sorts,  from  timid  mothers  of  fifty  in 
cotton  gloves,  to  girls  just  out  of  Vassar  who  organize  strikes 
in  their  own  fathers'  factories!  All  of  you  are  more  or  less 
useful  to  me,  but  only  a  few  of  you  can  take  my  place,  because 
I  have  one  virtue  (only  one):  I  have  given  up  father  and 
mother  and  children  for  the  love  of  God. 

"  Here's  the  test  for  you:  Do  you  come  to  *  conquer  the 
East,'  as  people  say,  or  do  you  come  to  conquer  yourself? 

"  It's  so  much  more  complicated  than  any  of  you  know — so 
much  more  complicated  than  I  knew  when  I  put  on  Ground 
Grippers  and  started  out  to  reform  the  world.  The  final  com 
plication  in  '  conquering  Washington'  or  l  conquering  New 
York '  is  that  the  conquerors  must  beyond  all  things  not  con 
quer!  It  must  have  been  so  easy  in  the  good  old  days  when 
authors  dreamed  only  of  selling  a  hundred  thousand  volumes, 
and  sculptors  of  being  feted  in  big  houses,  and  even  the  Up- 
lifters  like  me  had  a  simple-hearted  ambition  to  be  elected  to 
important  offices  and  invited  to  go  round  lecturing.  But  we 
meddlers  have  upset  everything.  Now  the  one  thing  that  is 
disgraceful  to  any  of  us  is  obvious  success.  The  Uplifter  who 
is  very  popular  with  wealthy  patrons  can  be  pretty  sure  that 


MAIN    STREET  441 

he  has  softened  his  philosophy  to  please  them,  and  the  author 
who  is  making  lots  of  money — poor  things,  I've  heard  'em 
apologizing  for  it  to  the  shabby  bitter-enders;  I've  seen  'em 
ashamed  of  the  sleek  luggage  they  got  from  movie  rights- 

"  Do  you  want  to  sacrifice  yourself  in  such  a  topsy-turvy 
world,  where  popularity  makes  you  unpopular  with  the  people 
you  love,  and  the  only  failure  is  cheap  success,  and  the  only 
individualist  is  the  person  who  gives  up  all  his  individualism 
to  serve  a  jolly  ungrateful  proletariat  which  thumbs  its  nose  at 
him?  " 

Carol  smiled  ingratiatingly,  to  indicate  that  she  was  indeed 
one  who  desired  to  sacrifice,  but  she  sighed,  "  I  don't  know; 
I'm  afraid  I'm  not  heroic.  I  certainly  wasn't  out  home.  Why 
didn't  I  do  big  effective " 

"  Not  a  matter  of  heroism.  Matter  of  endurance.  Your 
Middlewest  is  double-Puritan — prairie  Puritan  on  top  of  New 
England  Puritan;  bluff  frontiersman  on  the  surface,  but  in  its 
heart  it  still  has  the  ideal  of  Plymouth  Rock  in  a  sleet-storm. 
There's  one  attack  you  can  make  on  it,  perhaps  the  only  kind 
that  accomplishes  much  anywhere:  you  can  keep  on  looking 
at  one  thing  after  another  in  your  home  and  church  and  bank, 
and  ask  why  it  is,  and  who  first  laid  down  the  law  that  it  had 
to  be  that  way.  If  enough  of  us  do  this  impolitely  enough, 
then  we'll  become  civilized  in  merely  twenty  thousand  years 
or  so,  instead  of  having  to  wait  the  two  hundred  thousand 
years  that  my  cynical  anthropologist  friends  allow.  .  .  . 
Easy,  pleasant,  lucrative  home-work  for  wives:  asking  people 
to  define  their  jobs.  That's  the  most  dangerous  doctrine  I 
know!  " 

Carol  was  mediating,  "  I  will  go  back!  I  will  go  on  asking 
questions.  I've  always  done  it,  and  always  failed  at  it,  and  it's 
all  I  can  do.  I'm  going  to  ask  Ezra  Stowbody  why  he's  op 
posed  to  the  nationalization  of  railroads,  and  ask  Dave  Dyer 
why  a  druggist  always  is  pleased  when  he's  called  '  doctor,* 
and  maybe  ask  Mrs.  Bogart  why  she  wears  a  widow's  veil  that 
looks  like  a  dead  crow." 

The  woman  leader  straightened.  "  And  you  have  one  thing. 
You  have  a  baby  to  hug.  That's  my  temptation.  I  dream  of 
babies — of  a  baby — and  I  sneak  around  parks  to  see  them 
playing.  (The  children  in  Dupont  Circle  are  like  a  poppy- 
garden.)  And  the  antis  call  me  *  unsexed '  !  " 

Carol  was  thinking,  in  panic,  "  Oughtn't  Hugh  to  have 


442  MAIN   STREET 

country  air?  I  won't  let  him  become  a  yokel.  I  can  guide 
him  away  from  street-corner  loafing.  ...  I  think  I  can." 

On  her  way  home:  "  Now  that  I've  made  a  precedent,  joined 
the  union  and  gone  out  on  one  strike  and  learned  personal 
solidarity,  I  won't  be  so  afraid.  Will  won't  always  be  resisting 
my  running  away.  Some  day  I  really  will  go  to  Europe  with 
him  ...  or  without  him. 

"  Fve  lived  with  people  who  are  not  afraid  to  go  to  jail. 
I  could  invite  a  Miles  Bjornstam  to  dinner  without  being 
afraid  of  the  Haydocks  ...  I  think  I  could. 

"  I'll  take  back  the  sound  of  Yvette  Guilbert's  songs  and 
Elman's  violin.  They'll  be  only  the  lovelier  against  the  thrum 
ming  of  crickets  in  the  stubble  on  an  autumn  day. 

"  I  can  laugh  now  and  be  serene    ...     I  think  I  can." 

Though  she  should  return,  she  said,  she  would  not  be  utterly 
defeated.  She  was  glad  of  her  rebellion.  The  prairie  was  no 
longer  empty  land  in  the  sun-glare;  it  was  the  living  tawny 
beast  which  she  had  fought  and  made  beautiful  by  fighting; 
and  in  the  village  streets  were  shadows  of  her  desires  and  the 
sound  of  her  marching  and  the  seeds  of  mystery  and  greatness. 


Her  active  hatred  of  Gopher  Pairie  had  run  out.  She  saw 
it  now  as  a  toiling  new  settlement.  With  sympathy  she  re 
membered  Kennicott's  defense  of  its  citizens  as  "  a  lot  of 
pretty  good  folks,  working  hard  and  trying  to  bring  up  their 
families  the  best  they  can."  She  recalled  tenderly  the  young 
awkwardness  of  Main  Street  and  the  makeshifts  of  the  little 
brown  cottages ;  she  pitied  their  shabbiness  and  isolation ;  had 
compassion  for  their  assertion  of  culture,  even  as  expressed  in 
Thanatopsis  papers,  for  their  pretense  of  greatness,  even  as 
trumpeted  in  "  boosting."  She  saw  Main  Street  in  the  dusty 
prairie  sunset,  a  line  of  frontier  shanties  with  solemn  lonely 
people  waiting  for  her,  solemn  and  lonely  as  an  old  man  who 
has  outlived  his  friends.  She  remembered  that  Kennicott  and 
Sam  Clark  had  listened  to  her  songs,  and  she  wanted  to  run 
to  them  and  sing. 

"  At  last,"  she  rejoiced,  "  I've  come  to  a  fairer  attitude 
toward  the  town.  I  can  love  it,  now." 

She  was,  perhaps,  rather  proud  of  herself  for  having  acquired 
so  much  tolerance. 


MAIN   STREET  443 

She  awoke  at  three  in  the  morning,  after  a  dream  of  being 
tortured  by  Ella  Stowbody  and  the  Widow  Bogart. 

"  I've  been  making  the  town  a  myth.  This  is  how  people 
keep  up  the  tradition  of  the  perfect  home-town,  the  happy 
boyhood,  the  brilliant  college  friends.  We  forget  so.  I've 
been  forgetting  that  Main  Street  doesn't  think  it's  in  the  least 
lonely  and  pitiful.  It  thinks  it's  God's  Own  Country.  It  isn't 
waiting  for  me.  It  doesn't  care." 

But  the  next  evening  she  again  saw  Gopher  Prairie  as  her 
home,  waiting  for  her  in  the  sunset,  rimmed  round  with 
splendor. 


She  did  not  return  for  five  months  more;  five  months 
crammed  with  greedy  accumulation  of  sounds  and  colors  to 
take  back  for  the  long  still  days. 

She  had  spent  nearly  two  years  in  Washington. 

When  she  departed  for  Gopher  Prairie,  in  June,  her  second 
baby  was  stirring  within  her. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 


SHE  wondered  all  the  way  home  what  her  sensations  would  be. 
She  wondered  about  it  so  much  that  she  had  every  sensation 
she  had  imagined.  She  was  excited  by  each  familiar  porch, 
each  hearty  "  Well,  well!  "  and  flattered  to  be,  for  a  day,  the 
most  important  news  of  the  community.  She  bustled  about, 
making  calls.  Juanita  Haydock  bubbled  over  their  Washington 
encounter,  and  took  Carol  to  her  social  bosom.  This  ancient 
opponent  seemed  likely  to  be  her  most  intimate  friend,  for 
Vida  Sherwin,  though  she  was  cordial,  stood  back  and  watched 
for  imported  heresies. 

In  the  evening  Carol  went  to  the  mill.  The  mystical  Om- 
Om-Om  of  the  dynamos  in  the  electric-light  plant  behin  J  the 
mill  was  louder  in  the  darkness.  Outside  sat  the  night  watch 
man,  Champ  Perry.  He  held  up  his  stringy  hands  and 
squeaked,  "  WeVe  all  missed  you  terrible." 

Who  in  Washington  would  miss  her? 

Who  in  Washington  could  be  depended  upon  like  Guy 
Pollock?  When  she  saw  him  on  the  street,  smiling  as  always; 
he  seemed  an  eternal  thing,  a  part  of  her  own  self. 

After  a  week  she  decided  that  she  was  neither  glad  nor 
sorry  to  be  back.  She  entered  each  day  with  the  matter-of-fact 
attitude  with  which  she  had  gone  to  her  office  in  Washington. 
It  was  her  task;  there  would  be  mechanical  details  and  mean 
ingless  talk;  what  of  it? 

The  only  problem  which  she  had  approached  with  emotion 
proved  insignificant.  She  had,  on  the  train,  worked  herself 
up  to  such  devotion  that  she  was  willing  to  give  up  her  own 
room,  to  try  to  share  all  of  her  life  with  Kennicott. 

He  mumbled,  ten  minutes  after  she  had  entered  the  house, 
"  Say,  I've  kept  your  room  for  you  like  it  was.  I've  kind  of 
come  round  to  your  way  of  thinking.  Don't  see  why  folks 
need  to  get  on  each  other's  nerves  just  because  they're  friendly. 
Darned  if  I  haven't  got  so  J  iike  a  little  privacy  and  mulling 
things  over  by  myself." 

444 


MAIN   STREET  445 

n 

She  had  left  a  city  which  sat  up  nights  to  talk  of  universal* 
transition;  of  European  revolution,  guild  socialism,  free  verse. 
She  had  fancied  that  all  the  world  was  changing. 

She  found  that  it  was  not. 

In  Gopher  Prairie  the  only  ardent  new  topics  were  prohibi 
tion,  the  place  in  Minneapolis  where  you  could  get  whisky  at 
thirteen  dollars  a  quart,  recipes  for  home-made  beer,  the  "  high 
tost  of  living,"  the  presidential  election,  Clark's  new  car,  and 
not  very  novel  foibles  of  Cy  Bogart.  Their  problems  were 
exactly  what  they  had  been  two  years  ago,  what  they  had  been 
twenty  years  ago,  and  what  they  would  be  for  twenty  years 
to  come.  With  the  world  a  possible  volcano,  the  husbandmen 
were  plowing  at  the  base  of  the  mountain.  A  volcano  does 
occasionally  drop  a  river  of  lava  on  even  the  best  of  agricul 
turists,  to  their  astonishment  and  considerable  injury,  but  their 
cousins  inherit  the  farms  and  a  year  or  two  later  go  back  to 
the  plowing. 

She  was  unable  to  rhapsodize  much  over  the  seven  new 
bungalows  and  the  two  garages  which  Kennicott  had  made  to 
seem  so  important.  Her  intensest  thought  about  them  was, 
"  Oh  yes,  they're  all  right  I  suppose."  The  change  which  she 
did  heed  was  the  erection  of  the  schoolbuilding,  with  its  cheer 
ful  brick  walls,  broad  windows,  gymnasium,  classrooms  for 
agriculture  and  cooking.  It  indicated  Vida's  triumph,  and  it 
stirred  her  to  activity — any  activity.  She  went  to  Vida  with  a 
jaunty,  "  I  think  I  shall  work  for  you.  And  I'll  begin  at  the 
bottom." 

She  did.  She  relieved  the  attendant  at  the  rest-room  for 
an  hour  a  day.  Her  only  innovation  was  painting  the  pine 
table  a  black  and  orange  rather  shocking  to  the  Thanatopsis, 
She  talked  to  the  farmwives  and  soothed  their  babies  and  was 
happy. 

Thinking  of  them  she  did  not  think  of  the  ugliness  of  Main 
Street  as  she  hurried  along  it  to  the  chatter  of  the  Jolly 
Seventeen. 

She  wore  her  eye-glasses  on  the  street  now.  She  was  begin 
ning  to  ask  Kennicott  and  Juanita  if  she  didn't  look  young, 
much  younger  than  thirty-three.  The  eye-glasses  pinched  her 
nose.  She  considered  spectacles.  They  would  make  her  seem 
older,  and  hopelessly  settled.  No!  She  would  not  wear  spec- 


446  MAIN   STREET 

tacles  yet.    But  she  tried  on  a  pair  at  Kennicott's  office.    They 
really  were  much  more  comfortable. 


nr 

Dr.  Westlake,  Sam  Clark,  Nat  Hicks,  and  Del  Snafflin  were 
talking  in  Del's  barber  shop. 

"  Well,  I  see  Kennicott's  wife  is  taking  a  whirl  at  the  rest- 
room,  now,"  said  Dr.  Westlake.  He  emphasized  the  "  now." 

Del  interrupted  the  shaving  of  Sam  and,  with  his  brush 
dripping  lather,  he  observed  jocularly: 

"  What '11  she  be  up  to  next?  They  say  she  used  to  claim 
this  burg  wasn't  swell  enough  for  a  city  girl  like  her,  and 
would  we  please  tax  ourselves  about  thirty-seven  point  nine  anc 
fix  it  all  up  pretty,  with  tidies  on  the  hydrants  and  statoos  on 
the  lawns " 

Sam  irritably  blew  the  lather  from  his  lips,  with  milky 
small  bubbles,  and  snorted,  "  Be  a  good  thing  for  most  of  us 
roughnecks  if  we  did  have  a  smart  woman  to  tell  us  how  to 
fix  up  the  town.  Just  as  much  to  her  kicking  as  there  was 
to  Jim  Blausser's  gassing  about  factories.  And  you  can  bet 
Mrs.  Kennicott  is  smart,  even  if  she  is  skittish.  Glad  to  see 
her  back." 

Dr.  Westlake  hastened  to  play  safe.  "So  was  I!  So  was  I! 
She's  got  a  nice  way  about  her,  and  she  knows  a  good  deal 
about  books — or  fiction  anyway.  Of  course  she's  like  all  the 
rest  of  these  women — not  solidly  founded — not  scholarly — 
doesn't  know  anything  about  political  economy — falls  for  every 
new  idea  that  some  wind  jamming  crank  puts  out.  But  she's 
a  nice  woman.  She'll  probably  fix  up  the  rest-room,  and  the 
rest-room  is  a  fine  thing,  brings  a  lot  of  business  to  town.  And 
now  that  Mrs.  Kennicott's  been  away,  maybe  she's  got  over 
some  of  her  fool  ideas.  Maybe  she  realizes  that  folks  simply 
laugh  at  her  when  she  tries  to  tell  us  how  to  run  everything." 

"  Sure.  She'll  take  a  tumble  to  herself,"  said  Nat  Hicks, 
sucking  in  his  lips  judicially.  "  As  far  as  T'v  concerned,  I'll 
say  she's  as  nice  a  looking  skirt  as  there  is  in  town.  But  yow!  " 
His  tone  electrified  them.  "  Guess  she'll  miss  that  Swede 
Valborg  that  used  to  work  for  me!  They  was  a  pair!  Talking 
poetry  and  moonshine!  If  they  could  of  got  away  with  it, 
they'd  of  been  so  darn  lovey-dovey " 

Sam  Clark  interrupted,  "  Rats,  they  never  even  thought 


MAIN    STREET  447 

about  making  love.  Just  talking  books  and  all  that  junk. 
I  tell  you,  Carrie  Kennicott's  a  smart  woman,  and  these  smart 
educated  women  all  get  funny  ideas,  but  they  get  over  'em 
after  they've  had  three  or  four  kids.  You'll  see  her  settled 
down  one  of  these  days,  and  teaching  Sunday  School  and 
helping  at  sociables  and  behaving  herself,  and  not  trying  to 
butt  into  business  and  politics.  Sure!  " 

After  only  fifteen  minutes  of  conference  on  her  stockings, 
her  son,  her  separate  bedroom,  her  music,  her  ancient  interest 
in  Guy  Pollock,  her  probable  salary  in  Washington,  and  every 
remark  which  she  was  known  to  have  made  since  her  return, 
the  supreme  council  decided  that  they  would  permit  Carol 
Kennicott  to  live,  and  they  passed  on  to  a  consideration  of 
Nat  Hicks 's  New  One  about  the  traveling  salesman  and  the 
old  maid. 


IV 

For  some  reason  which  was  totally  mysterious  to  Carol, 
Maud  Dyer  seemed  to  resent  her  return.  At  the  Jolly  Seven 
teen  Maud  giggled  nervously,  "  Well,  I  suppose  you  found 
war-work  a  good  excuse  to  stay  away  and  have  a  swell  time. 
Juanita!  Don't  you  think  we  ought  to  make  Carrie  tell  us 
about  the  officers  she  met  in  Washington?  " 

They  rustled  and  stared.  Carol  looked  at  them.  Their 
curiosity  seemed  natural  and  unimportant. 

"  Oh  yes,  yes  indeed,  have  to  do  that  some  day,"  she 
yawned. 

She  no  longer  took  Aunt  Bessie  Smail  seriously  enough  to 
struggle  for  independence.  She  saw  that  Aunt  Bessie  did  not 
mean  to  intrude",  that  she  wanted  to  do  things  for  all  the 
Kennicotts.  Thus  Carol  hit  upon  the  tragedy  of  old  age,  which 
is  not  that  it  is  less  vigorous  than  youth,  but  that  it  is  not 
needed  by  youth;  that  its  love  and  prosy  sageness,  so  im 
portant  a  few  years  ago,  so  gladly  offered  now,  are  rejected 
with  laughter.  She  divined  that  when  Aunt  Bessie  came  in 
with  a  jar  of  wild-grape  jelly  she  was  waiting  in  hope  of  being 
asked  for  the  recipe.  After  that  she  could  be  irritated  but  she 
could  not  be  depressed  by  Aunt  Bessie's  simoom  of  ques 
tioning. 

She  wasn't  depressed  even  when  she  heard  Mrs.  Bogart 
observe,  "  Now  we've  got  prohibition  it  seems  to  me  that  the 


448  MAIN   STREET 

next  problem  of  the  country  ain't  so  much  abolishing  ciga 
rettes  as  it  is  to  make  folks  observe  the  Sabbath  and  arrest 
these  law-breakers  that  play  baseball  and  go  to  the  movies 
and  all  on  the  Lord's  Day." 

Only  one  thing  bruised  Carol's  vanity.  Few  people  asked  her 
about  Washington.  They  who  had  most  admiringly  begged 
Percy  Bresnahan  for  his  opinions  were  least  interested  in  her 
facts.  She  laughed  at  herself  when  she  saw  that  she  had 
expected  to  be  at  once  a  heretic  and  a  returned  hero;  she  was 
very  reasonable  and  merry  about  it;  and  it  hurt  just  as  much 
as  ever. 


Her  baby,  born  in  August,  was  a  girl.  Carol  could  not 
decide  whether  she  was  to  become  a  feminist  leader  or  marry 
a  scientist  or  both,  but  did  settle  on  Vassar  and  a  tricolette 
suit  with  a  small  black  hat  for  her  Freshman  year. 


VI 

Hugh  was  loquacious  at  breakfast.  He  desired  to  give  his 
impressions  of  owls  and  F  Street. 

"  Don't  make  so  much  noise.  You  talk  too  much,"  growled 
Kennicott. 

Carol  flared.  "  Don't  speak  to  him  that  way!  Why  don't 
you  listen  to  him?  He  has  some  very  interesting  things  to 
tell." 

"What's  the  idea?  Mean  to  say  you  expect  me  to  spend 
all  my  time  listening  to  his  chatter?  " 

"  Why  not?  " 

"  For  one  thing,  he's  got  to  learn  a  little  discipline.  Time 
for  him  to  start  getting  educated." 

"I've  learned  much  more  discipline,  I've  had  much  more 
education,  from  him  than  he  has  from  me." 

"  What's  this?  Some  new-fangled  idea  of  raising  kids  you 
got  in  Washington?  " 

"  Perhaps.    Did  you  ever  realize  that  children  are  people?  " 

"  That's  all  right.  I'm  not  going  to  have  him  monopolizing 
the  conversation." 

r~    "  No,  of  course.    We  have  our  rights,  too.    But  I'm  going 
to  bring  him  up  as  a  human  being.    He  has  just  as  many 


MAIN    STREET  449 

thoughts  as  we  have,  and  I  want  him  to  develop  them,  not 
take  Gopher  Prairie's  version  of  them.  That's  my  biggest 
work  now — keeping  myself,  keeping  you,  from  '  educating ' 
him." 

"  Well,  let's  not  scrap  about  it.  But  I'm  not  going  to  have 
him  spoiled." 

Kennicott  had  forgotten  it  in  ten  minutes;  and  she  forgot 
it — this  time. 


VII 

The  Kennicotts  and  the  Sam  Clarks  had  driven  north  to  a 
duck-pass  between  two  lakes,  on  an  autumn  day  of  blue  and 
Copper. 

Kennicott  had  given  her  a  light  twenty-gauge  shotgun.  She 
had  a  first  lesson  in  shooting,  in  keeping  her  eyes  open,  not 
wincing,  understanding  that  the  bead  at  the  end  of  the  barrel 
really  had  something  to  do  with  pointing  the  gun.  She  was 
radiant;  she  almost  believed  Sam  when  he  insisted  that  it  was 
she  who  had  shot  the  mallard  at  which  they  had  fired  to 
gether. 

She  sat  on  the  bank  of  the  reedy  lake  and  found  rest  in 
Mrs.  Clark's  drawling  comments  on  nothing.  The  brown  dusk 
was  still.  Behind  them  were  dark  marshes.  The  plowed  acres 
smelled  fresh.  The  lake  was  garnet  and  silver.  The  voices  of 
the  men,  waiting  for  the  last  flight,  were  clear  in  the  cool 
air. 

"  Mark  left!  "  sang  Kennicott,  in  a  long-drawn  call. 

Three  ducks  were  swooping  down  in  a  swift  line.  The  guns 
banged,  and  a  duck  fluttered.  The  men  pushed  their  light 
boat  out  on  the  burnished  lake,  disappeared  beyond  the  reeds. 
Their  cheerful  voices  and  the  slow  splash  and  clank  of  oars 
came  back  to  Carol  from  the  dimness.  In  the  sky  a  fiery  plain 
sloped  down  to  a  serene  harbor.  It  dissolved;  the  lake  was 
white  marble;  and  Kennicott  was  crying,  "  Well,  old  lady,  how 
about  hiking  out  for  home?  Supper  taste  pretty  good,  eh?  " 

"  I'll  sit  back  with  Ethel,"  she  said,  at  the  car. 

It  was  the  first  time  she  had  called  Mrs.  Clark  by  her  given 
name;  the  first  time  she  had  willingly  sat  back,  a  woman  of\y 
Main  Street. 

"  I'm  hungry.  It's  good  to  be  hungry,"  she  reflected,  as 
They  drove  away. 


450  MAIN   STREET 

She  looked  across  the  silent  fields  to  the  west.  She  was 
conscious  of  an  unbroken  sweep  of  land  to  the  Rockies,  to 
Alaska;  a  dominion  which  will  rise  to  unexampled  greatness 
when  other  empires  have  grown  senile.  Before  that  time,  she 
knew,  a  hundred  generations  of  Carols  will  aspire  and  go  down 
in  tragedy  devoid  of  palls  and  solemn  chanting,  the  hum 
drum  inevitable  tragedy  of  struggle  against  inertia. 

"Let's  all  go  to  the  movies  tomorrow  night.  Awfully  ex 
citing  film,"  said  Ethel  Clark. 

"  Well,  I  was  going  to  read  a  new  book  but All  right, 

let's  go,"  said  Carol. 


vm 

"They're  too  much  for  me,"  Carol  sighed  to  Kennicott. 
"  I've  been  thinking  about  getting  up  an  annual  Community 
Day,  when  the  whole  town  would  forget  feuds  and  go  out  and 
have  sports  and  a  picnic  and  a  dance.  But  Bert  Tybee  (why 
did  you  ever  elect  him  mayor?) — he's  kidnapped  my  idea. 
He  wants  the  Community  Day,  but  he  wants  to  have  some 
politician  '  give  an  address.'  That's  just  the  stilted  sort  of 
thing  I've  tried  to  avoid.  He  asked  Vida,  and  of  course  she 
agreed  with  him." 

Kennicott  considered  the  matter  while  he  wound  the  clock 
and  they  tramped  up-stairs. 

"  Yes,  it  would  jar  you  to  have  Bert  butting  in,"  he  said 
amiably.  "  Are  you  going  to  do  much  fussing  over  this  Com 
munity  stunt?  Don't  you  ever  get  tired  of  fretting  and  stewing 
and  experimenting?  " 

"I  haven't  even  started.  Look!  "  She  led  him  to  the 
nursery  door,  pointed  at  the  fuzzy  brown  head  of  her  daughter. 
"  Do  you  see  that  object  on  the  pillow?  Do  you  know  what 
it  is?  It's  a  bomb  to  blow  up  smugness.  If  you  Tories  were 
wise,  you  wouldn't  arrest  anarchists;  you'd  arrest  all  these 
children  while  they're  asleep  in  their  cribs.  Think  what  that 
baby  will  see  and  meddle  with  before  she  dies  in  the  year  2000! 
She  may  see  an  industrial  union  of  the  whole  world,  she  may 
see  aeroplanes  going  to  Mars." 

"  Yump,  probably  be  changes  all  right,"  yawned  Kennicott. 

She  sat  on  the  edge  of  his  bed  while  he  hunted  through  his 
bureau  for  a  collar  which  ought  to  be  there  and  persistently 
wasn't. 


MAIN    STREET  45' 

w  I'll  go  on,  always.  And  I  am  happy.  But  this  Community 
Day  makes  me  see  how  thoroughly  I'm  beaten." 

"  That  darn  collar  certainly  is  gone  for  keeps,"  muttered 

Kennicott  and,  louder,  "  Yes,  I  guess  you I  didn't  quite 

catch  what  you  said,  dear." 

She  patted  his  pillows,  turned  down  his  sheets,  as  she  re 
flected: 

"  But  I  have  won  in  this:  I've  never  excused  my  failures  •  i 
by  sneering  at  my  aspirations,  by  pretending  to  have  gone 
beyond  them.     I  do  not  admit  that  Main  Street  is  as  beautiful  , 
as  it  should  be!      I  do  not  admit  that  Gopher  Prairie  is      , 
greater  or  more  generous  than  Europe!     I  do  not  admit  that 
dish- washing  is  enough  to  satisfy  all  women!    I  may  not  have 
fought  the  good  fight,  but  I  have  kept  the  faith." ' 

"  Sure.  You  bet  you  have,"  said  Kennicott.  "  Well,  good 
night.  Sort  of  feels  to  me  like  it  might  snow  tomorrow.  Have 
to  be  thinking  about  putting  up  the  storm-windows  pretty 
soon.  Say,  did  you  notice  whether  the  girl  put  that  screw 
driver  back?  " 


THE  END 


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